


Deep Ocean Laugh

by witchspellbook



Category: One Piece
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Vinsmoke Sanji, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oral Sex, POV Vinsmoke Sanji, Pining Roronoa Zoro, Pining Vinsmoke Sanji, Post-Whole Cake Island, Rimming, Sanji has PSTD, Sanji has Rejection Sensitive Disphoria, Switching, Vinsmoke Sanji Being an Idiot, Vinsmoke Sanji Needs a Hug, i may add more tags as i update, im not sure i handed that one well so let me know if i didnt, its very angsty, or if i remember, sanji pines while he fucks, there is more sex than what i planned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26540623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchspellbook/pseuds/witchspellbook
Summary: They say; when you are laughing in a group and someone across the room looks out for you to laugh with, it means they love you. Sanji looks across the table, Zoro's eye is looking for him.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 123
Kudos: 300





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my last fic was making zoro suffer hours, this one is making sanji suffer hours. 
> 
> this fic is almost finished, chapters 1 to 4 are ready to post and 5-6 need light editing, 7 is missing half a scene and 8 its just the epilogue so at least i can assure you ill be posting regularly. ive been writing this thing since january, damn.
> 
> without further ado please enjoy!

Zoro laughs. They are all laughing really, but Zoro laughs. Sanji looks at him across the galley, the way his back trembles with joy, his face hidden in the crook of his arm, surrendered to glee, only ever to glee, Sanji wonders if he ever surrenders to ectasis. He lifts his head to breath and there are crow’s foots forming at the corner of his eyes, adorning his tanned skin, Sanji wonders once again when he started to think like this, to look for Zoro’s eyes when he laughs, to look for the shine of his swords in battle, for the mop of green hair between the crowd.

Usopp adds another plot twist to his story that makes Luffy make a loud noise and Zoro snorts, there is roaring laughter around him and Sanji laughs too because these are his friends and laughter is infectious. It’s ugly, though, there is a vein bulging in the marimo’s forehead, the same one that makes an appearance when Sanji makes fun of him and it’s true, his eyebrows are scrunched together, highlighting his ever-present frown, his chest broadens with each guffaw and Sanji wants to feel it move, below him, on top of him, against his naked skin. Zoro’s fist hits the table, once, twice and again more loud than violent and Sanji wants those hands fisting his hair, closing around him, his hands, his throat, his cock.

Sanji hides a sigh with a deep breath because laughter has effectively stolen his air, when he focuses again Zoro has his face turned towards him, his dark eyes closed tight, a clicking noise coming from his throat, through his closed teeth, he is not done laughing. Then he opens his one good eye, smiling bright at Sanji, still laughing, and Sanji’s heart stops in his chest but he laughs still. _Oh,_ he’ll be twice damned, he thinks after imagining that smile waking him up every morning. This isn’t lust anymore. It hasn’t been in a long, long while but now he has to do something about it.

______

He knows the marimo won't laugh at him, he knows the marimo won't even tell the rest of the crew, even if he doesn't ask him to stay shut, they are nakama, they are even friends but Sanji frets still, busies himself in his kitchen, in marketplaces, among fishmongers and butchers. Desserts and drinks and dishes are new and plentiful, candied fruits and jars of sauces and preserves, going so far as to start long winded ferments, this town he buys soybean in bulk for homemade soy sauce and miso, next town cases of raw honey for mead and honeycomb, he steals empty barrels from Franky and buys grain to try his hand with beer. He knows he is stalling, it’s been weeks, maybe months and it’s only getting stronger, this need to touch, to feel, to mourn. Sporadic clashes with the marine help him to clear his mind of it until he sees the flash of steel in his periphery and then he can’t help but stare, to look, he’s often shirtless in battle, and his arms are strong holding his swords and his voices rumbles clear through the battlefield, Sanji has never understood how he can speak with Wadö in his mouth but he does. And Sanji wants to yell, to laugh, to cheer. He knows Zoro would hate it.

He only knows how to woo one way and he knows the marimo hates it, too loud emotions too loud declarations. The islands keep getting warmer and warmer and so Zoro trains on deck, shirtless, thin sheen of sweat on his skin and Sanji wants to kick him on the head, lick the salt of his skin, ride him right there in the open air.

And Zoro must know, he has to know by now, Sanji has never been subtle in his affections, Sanji has never known how to keep his want all to himself. He ogles and pines and cooks, he avoids their fights, scared of the touch he so much yearns, scared of slipping a caress among his kicks, scared of confusing his body into thinking that violence is enough.

And Zoro looks at him, studies him. He knows the wrongness of him and Sanji feels his gaze like a laser, feels like an ant under a magnifying glass and so he cooks, holed up in his kitchen. Luffy has never been happier.

______

He is nursing a cigarette and the last sips of a tumbler of rum at the bar, the light filtering blue through the aquarium walls, gathering courage, gathering resolution, to finally talk to the marimo. They are both alone in the ship, it’s been three days since the Sunny has gone ashore and today Sanji is on watch duty. Zoro’s in obsessive work out mode, lifting impossible weights right outside the kitchen window, shirtless as ever, and Sanji can’t. His will is weak in this department, he’ll bleed himself to death, he’ll burn his kitchen to the ground, he’ll gauche his eyeballs with a spoon, he’ll do something stupid and harass the marimo and deny ever had done it and lose all respect Zoro has for him for ever and ever and ever.

He is going to talk to him, he has to. He’s going to make lunch for the both of them and they are going to talk, and Zoro will hum and nod and say he understands but can’t reciprocate, that he hopes Sanji finds someone better for him and that he won’t tell. They are going to finish lunch in silence and Sanji will wash the dishes alone and cry angry tears and get over it all, finally. They won’t talk until the crew is back in the ship and they won’t fight until one of them almost dies again and he won’t be able to make Zoro laugh the way he sometimes manages, loud and stupid and entirely boyish, the way they sometimes just click, just because they are the same age just because they deal with the same bullshit, just because they are actually so alike, just because Zoro sometimes _sees_ him. Sanji is convincing himself that that is ok when Zoro walks into the room.

Sanji is on his feet before he can think about it, there is a look in Zoro’s dark eye, a warning. It can’t be the crew; he would have heard the ruckus of them and Zoro is too clean to have been the marines. Somehow it feels like Sanji is at fault and he can’t bear the thought of a fight, not when all he wants is confess and fucking mourn his broken heart in peace.

“I need a word with you, marimo” He mutters, placing his ashtray and tumbler somewhere safe, somewhere he can find them later and fill again, but Zoro doesn’t seem to have heard him, before he finishes speaking Zoro is barking at him.

“The entire ship smells like your fucking cigarettes”

It’s true, but also, it's not. Sanji can feel the citrusy-sweet smell of Nami’s mikans permeating the walls, the flowery coffee aroma of Robin floating in the air, the gunpowder stank that Usopp drags to every room and the sugar, musk and antiseptic odour of Chopper, the food vapours coming down from the kitchen, the sickly-sweet cola and engine oil smell of Franky. It smells like them; it smells like home and right now the smell of freshly sharpened steel makes Sanji’s knees feel weak. There is an air current coming from the door that Zoro has left open and Sanji can smell him, the ocean salt of his skin, of when Zoro jumps rail to rinse the sweat from himself no matter the weather of the islands, the steel of him. Sanji doesn't want to think of how their smells would mingle and marry, of how his fingers smell of smoke but of steel - kitchen steel - too and how he has touched himself with his fingers in his mouth, thinking of tanner ones, rougher ones and it hurts him. So, he frowns and looks away and can’t see when Zoro crosses the room to shove him hard back into the sofa

“It’s driving me insane”.

He falls back easy, like a ragdoll, and his legs feel like lead and his heart feels like a devil’s fruit user, sinking down to the ocean, cursed by the salt and the currents and the seaweed. Zoro crowds him with a hand besides his head and a leg in the space between his, too close, closer than ever, he could kick him easily from where they are, get him off of him but Sanji can’t breathe, not with the salt-steel smell of Zoro hovering above him, seeping into his own skin, not with the razor edge of his eye staring at him, so he stops.

_Hold it in,_ he thinks _, like you did for mum, like you did on that rock, hold it in for him, don’t let him see you cry_.

He’s not afraid of a fight, he is not afraid of the sharp edge of a sword or the weight of a fist against his face, he knows them and can bear them, but his heart is bruised enough as it is. He’ll take his rejection, the one he doesn’t want, that he doesn't think he can bear. He doesn’t want the cold words of courtesy, the stiff honour towards his love, he wants the loud joy, the exasperated banter, the angry yelling after getting hurt at battle. The little moments too, he wants the complicit looks that mean so much to him to mean the same to Zoro, he wants to kiss his frown after annoying him, _God_ he wants to nap with Zoro, curled up against his side in the fresh air of the deck, where everyone can see them, where he can love out loud. But Zoro looks at him angry, ready for a fight and his tongue is sharp as his swords, Sanji can bear a fistfight, can bear his swords, what he cannot do is have a discussion, if the marimo insults him today, if Zoro reminds him how much cruel rejections hurts... He feels the burning tell-tale of tears rimming his eyes and his bruised heart already in his throat, he’ll force the words out even if he bleeds them, even if Zoro finds him disgusting, even if Zoro ask him to never speak to him again, he’ll force them out and end this self-imposed torture.

“You are avoiding me.” Zoro whispers, his face inching closer “The way you look at me... tell me I’m wrong. Tell me to stop” he is distracted and has lost his train of thought already which is as uncommon as him leaning in further, heated breath over heated skin and Sanji trembles against the cushions of the sofa, cornered like sheep under the hungry stare of a tiger. A golden lightning of thrill fills his every nerve, he seems to have misjudged the situations, he hopes he has misjudged the situation because Zoro is looking at his mouth, at the open neck of his shirt. “Tell me to stop” Zoro whispers again, the tip of his nose barely touching Sanji’s left cheek now, eyes scrunched closed, he looks in pain, annoyed by it, and Sanji can see the freckles on his skin this close “I won’t try anything again. Promise. I’ll forget I ever tried this. Tell me I’m delusional, tell me… Just tell me to _fuck off_ ”

Sanji grabs him by the lapels of his open yukata and kisses him soundly.

There is struggle, there is always struggle between them, but this time they want the same thing, and when Zoro gasps Sanji cannot help but to taste him. Zoro presses him against the sofa then, using the weight of him and he tastes like salt and sake.

“Tell me you are sober, are you sober? Tell me you are sober”

“I am, I am” Zoro answers biting into his neck and Sanji chokes a moan, then Zoro is off of him “Cook! - what? _Fuck_ , no, you were supposed to turn me down, to tell me to fuck off, to kick my ass for even daring…”

“Do you want me?”

“Do I...? N-no, not _just_ ” Sanji doesn’t let him finish, he is kissing Zoro again, pulling him in, feeling him up and Zoro kisses like he is starving and who is he to deny a hungry man. He ends on his back with Zoro over him, his presence consuming him and he hooks one of his legs over his back, to lock him there, to pull him closer. Zoro is mouthing at his neck, pulling at his loose tie, biting at his skin. Zoro sucks at the point just above his left collarbone and Sanji’s brain loses control of his hips, he pushes up, lifting Zoro between his open legs and Zoro moans, grounds their hips together when they fall back on the sofa and kisses him again, teeth and tongue, like he wants to eat him. He has a hand on Sanji’s head, pushing his hair away from his face, softly, stark contrast to his rough fingers and Sanji’s hands still clawed to the yukata finally let go to snake inside it. Zoro skin is cold, ocean damp, and he rakes his nails down the expanse of it, Zoro doesn’t have a single scar on his back and Sanji wants to mark it, bites, hickies, scratches. One well-placed scrape of his nails on the swordsman lower back, right under the haramaki, and Zoro pants into his mouth and grinds harder against him and Sanji can feel him heavy and hot against his own need and he wonders if he is just dreaming like many nights.

Zoro breaks the kiss to pull desperately at his shirt, up, up and off the way, to fret over the buckle of his belt, hands trembling and Sanji has never seen him like this. He looks at Zoro transfixed, he is panting like he only does in the midst of battle, a beet-red blush high on his cheekbones and Sanji has made a mess of his clothes, draped loose around his torso, hanging from one shoulder and not even the loose loops of his red sash can conceal the tenting of his trousers. Luckily there is not enough blood on Sanji’s head for him to have a nosebleed.

“Tell me to stop, cook. Tell me to stop” Zoro tells him again when he manages to sort the belt, waiting and tense.

“Just fucking touch me!” Sanji shouts pulling at his own hair with both hands and something changes in Zoro, his fingers trace the patch of hair that runs down from his navel to his trousers, then up over his stomach and his hands are rough and warm and broad and Sanji wants to cry again, out of frustration alone.

“You like me back” he laughs softly, amazed, Zoro is smiling at him, only at him, so soft, so fond and he is blushing furiously, he can feel it on his chest in the pounding of his bruised heart on his ears. Before he can say or do anything Zoro ducks down to kiss him again, softly now and Sanji has never been able to imagine something like this from him, it makes him ache in ways he doesn’t want to look up-close, he doesn't deserve it, he has done nothing for it. Then he feels Zoro undo his trouser and take him in hand and his brain stops. His mouth falls open in a moan and Zoro takes advantage of it, slipping his tongue in, trusting against his ass and moving his hand, different rhythms, perfect multitask, and it’s not right, it’s too dry, there are too many clothes but it’s more than what Sanji thought could ever get.

“You _have_ got to stop doing that” he whines when Zoro detaches from him again (Again!). He gives him a roguish smile and Sanji would have fallen to his feet if he wasn’t already on his back, then Zoro spits in his hand and shoves it back inside his trousers, crass and effective.

“Touch me, come on, I wanna feel you” Sanji doesn’t need to be told twice, he scrambles with the sash, with the sides of the yukata, with the button and zipper and the haramaki and all the while Zoro laughs, a dark soft chuckle that rumbles in his chest like sound underwater, his hand still around his cock and, just to bother Sanji - just to make him gasp and moan and lose control of his hands - he circles his thumb over the head of Sanji’s cock, pushes against the slit, gathering precome. As soon as Sanji has Zoro’s trousers halfway down his ass he licks his hand and makes a hold of Zoro, who moans satisfied deep in his throat and kisses him. After that it’s easy, it’s quick, too quick, they are panting too soon, they are coming too soon. Sanji comes first - only because Zoro has had his hand wrapped around his cock for longer - when Zoro bites him again.

He bites his lips and doesn’t shout, he doesn’t want to be too loud, too much, he doesn’t want to scare Zoro away.

Zoro comes soon after, little _ah ah ah_ sounds leaving his mouth while Sanji works him through it with a lazy hand and a fast rhythm, he finishes in his hand, hot and sticky and it drips just over Sanji crotch and Sanji feels too boneless to do anything about it while Zoro grunts and gets his breath back. Zoro kisses him on the lips once and then on his temple and it's been far too long since anyone has done that to Sanji, then he hums content and buries his nose in the blond mop that his hair has become.

Zoro is heavy on top of him but nothing he can’t bear, he thinks he can get used to the weight - he wants to - to the way their bodies fit together, to the way Zoro’s breath feels in the nape of his neck, damp, warm and present. Sanji thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

He wants to talk, he wants to kiss his face all over, to tell him how much he loves him, God he loves him, he’s known since Thriller Bark, since he was moving without thinking trying to stop the self-sacrificing idiot from dying, since those fucking hours he spend frantically looking for the marimo and the terrible hours after, wondering if he would make it, wondering if he has to lose someone again, blaming himself for another person who cares for him almost dying because he is not strong enough and never will be.

“Oii, don’t you fall asleep on me, marimo” he says instead when Zoro’s thumb stops rubbing lazily over his ribs.

Zoro gasps in surprise and mumbles “mnot sleep” and Sanji chuckles while Zoro gets up and stretch like a fucking cat, ropes of muscle moving under taught bronze skin and Sanji has to remind himself to swallow won’t he start drooling. There is cold come on his yukata and Zoro’s hair is spiked in all directions, Sanji doesn’t remember doing it but there is an angry bite just below Zoro’s earrings. And Zoro is staring back at him and he feels suddenly too exposed, too dirty and not enough so he tucks himself back into his trousers, pulls his shirt back down and stands.

“I feel gross,” he says walking towards the door, and it must have come out wrong because when he turns around to see Zoro he is frowning, stone faced looking the way he does when he is putting himself together “gonna wash myself. Wanna join?” he says, because he was going to say it anyway, and just like that the frown is gone, replaced by an easy smirk. It makes flowers bloom and butterflies flutter in Sanji’s stomach and for fucks sake he is a sap. Sanji doesn’t wait, he is past the door when Zoro caught up to him, grabbing his hand. Holding it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i offer you fluffy smut this week, dont get too attached to it

To get to the bathroom they have to walk outside and walking hand in hand with Zoro through the deck feels odd, but Zoro squeezes his hand once, reassuringly and then again hard on purpose until Sanji’s start to hurt, all the while he is looking away, hiding his amused smile because he is an asshole and when Sanji is about to kick him on the ribs to make him stop Zoro whips him around, pines him against the wall and kisses him, laughing at Sanji’s angry face and even if he wants to stay angry he can’t, not with Zoro deep ocean laugh, not with their lips pressed together, not when his own mind goes absolutely blanc when Zoro holds him by the waist, by the nape of his neck and scratches there mindlessly.

It’s his turn to laugh when they part to continue their way and Zoro starts walking towards the quarters. He grabs him by the sleeve and pulls him in the right direction, laughing at Zoro’s face. He looks so stupid, mouth ajar and eye looking dazed at him, letting him guide him until they find the ladder.

“I won’t get fucking lost going upwards” Zoro grunts when Sanji insist he goes up first. Sanji concedes only because he thinks the marimo just wants to have a good look at his ass.

He is finishing setting the heat of the water he is running for the bath when Zoro surfaces from the trapdoor. He turns around just in time to see him throw his yukata to a corner.

“You’re ogling,” Zoro says, infuriatingly smug, then he pops the button of his trousers and pulls down the zipper lecherously slow and Sanji can feel his jaw dropping, he can’t breathe, his fingers stop feeling, there is no blood in them anymore, no nosebleed because all blood is pooling down.

A dry “Fuck” escapes his mouth and Zoro has the gall to grin at him.

“Yeah, we should” he says and then chucks his booths in the direction of the rest of his clothes.

“Where did you learn to behave like that? When did you become such a slut?” Sanji manages to say when his body decides to work again and he wants to slap himself hard - _slut?!_ -. It’s a good thing that Zoro just chuckles unaffected.

“I just look at you and do whatever seems to get the better reaction” he is driving Sanji up the wall, of course. Of course. Of fucking course, he’d manage to be every single wet dream Sanji has ever had! Zoro can make him irrationally angry with a handful of words or a well-timed eyeroll, it makes sense that with little effort he can also push all the buttons that make him irredeemable horny.

By now Zoro has gotten rid of his trousers, shameless and perfect. Sanji can see him all, the tan lines, the scars, _it matches the drapes_ he thinks dizzy and he wants him on his mouth, and he wants him over him again, inside, around, below, and panting.

“Shouldn’t you undress too?” Zoro says stalking towards him and Sanji just realizes in a slight panic that he has caged himself with a hungry beast. Zoro pulls him up by the shirt when he reaches him “I’m gonna take your shirt off” he murmurs tugging at his tie and tossing it aside. “I’m not gonna ask you to stop me anymore, but you gotta start moving, cook” he says, undoing his cuffs and taking hold of Sanji’s right hand. Zoro places a kiss in the centre of its palm. 

Sanji rips his own shirt off, then.

He grabs Zoro by the nape of his neck and lounges to kiss him, desperate, desperate, desperate. They are halfway to the showers and Zoro's strong hands are in his ass, pulling him closer, shoving inside his trousers, wrestling again with the zipper. When they are down at his ankles Zoro grabs him by the waist and lifts him so Sanji can kick them all the way off, then he wraps his legs around Zoro, managing to trap them both between their bodies, rutting hard making them both moan. 

Zoro lets go of his legs, trusting him to hold himself up with ease, so he lets go of him to scratch a path down his legs, and then up again with a caress to the underside of his thighs, his rough hands making Sanji lose all control of himself and he bucks erratically against Zoro constricting him with his thighs, he is gonna leave bruises he thinks, he shouldn’t leave bruises but he can’t think about it anymore because Zoro’s hands are back at his ass, fingertips caressing at the back of his balls, pushing lightly as his taint, pulling at his cheeks and poking at his hole. Sanji gasps and digs his nails on Zoro’s back, and Zoro grunts at him, lips never leaving his neck.

“What do you want?” and Zoro is making a hickey on his collar bone “How far you want us to go?” the question stops Sanji dead. He unlocks his legs and let them fall to the floor. Sanji rests his forehead on Zoro’s shoulder because he wants the shitty marimo so much, as close as he can get him, because… because he has never gone through with it all, not with a man. “How far have you gone?” Zoro asks, there is no judgement, there are no nerves, his hands are a reassuring weight against his arm and waist and Sanji can tell Zoro won’t push him, but Sanji himself wants so much.

“Fingers. Had to pay” he can feel Zoro frowning, outraged, and it’s endearing, prideful and righteous Zoro offended on his behalf.

“What men wouldn't...?”

“Paid people don’t do more than what you pay them for” he interrupts and Zoro softens slightly, almost imperceptibly.

“You can fuck me.” He offers nuzzling his nose on his hair in a soothing gesture, it feels like something a cat would do, Sanji has always liked cats “I’d like that too”

“No. Yea- I mean…” Sanji stutters his brain going to a halt because he’d like that too too, but he wants to be Zoro’s, for Zoro to be the one to have him that way for the first time, maybe the only one to ever have him like that. He’d give his right hand and left thumb for Zoro to take his virginity and he knows that’s a stupid idea, virginity, but if he doesn’t believe in that kind of shit, on keeping himself to the one he loves… but he can’t say that to Zoro, he wouldn’t understand, so he shoves the thought down to the cage on his mind where the thing he want but can’t have are and mumbles instead “I want you… to”

“Well, we are not.”

“What?!” and he has to look up, enraged, ready to quite literally throw hands. What the shit does that mean? They’ve gone so far; they are both naked and thing will stop?!

“I’m not gonna pop your fucking cherry in a bathroom”

“What? Why?!” he steps back, the floor is not wet, he can kick Zoro’s face in without slipping but Zoro’s hands are still on him, holding him in place. They know each other too well to know when things could go physical.

“‘Cuz I like you,” _oh_ “and you like nice things. So I’m gonna make it nice for you” _OH_. Sanji can feel the butterflies in his stomach, he can feel his heartbeat going fast, his eyes wanting to do that thing they do when he is around girls so he grinds his teeth and smothers it down, wishes for a cigarette and cages it behind iron and stone. Then he can feel an idea forming in the marimo’s head, the start of a smirk playing in his lips “We could always…”

“We are not using the girl’s quarters!”

“Then we are not fucking today!”

“Then what do you plan to do with this?” he points at their cocks, hard and leaking and Zoro looks down to where he is pointing and then back at him again, pulling him flush against him with the hand that he still has on his hip, hot and heavy like cast iron right out the oven.

“You want head? My jaw doesn’t get tired…” Sanji feels himself leak against Zoro’s taut belly, against his hard hot cock, shorter than his but thicker, darker, he wonders if he can fit it in his mouth, he plans to figure it out sooner than later. “You still need to clean the spunk outta your pubes, that shit’s gonna hurt later. Come, let’s wash up first”

“Says the cleanest guy on the ship...”

“If we start fucking, I’ll wash more often” he shots back and leaves him to turn the bath faucet off. Sanji rolls his eyes but walks the rest of the way to the showers, he has one running warm water when Zoro pushes him lightly against the wall, broad open-hand in the middle of his back, until his face and upper torso are flush against it. Sanji tingles all over because Zoro’s lips and cock don’t waste time to be pressed against his neck and ass, respectively.

“What’s with you and shoving me into surfaces?” he teases, hoping he doesn't sound as excited and scared as he is feeling.

“Just keep washing” Zoro says, not biting into his half-hearted argument, he takes the hand that Sanji has against the wall and squirts liquid soap on it instead. He waits for him to lower his hand down, soaping the place where cum is dry on his skin to start kissing his neck again, to slide his hand to trace the place where his leg connects with his torso with rough fingers that have Sanji rinsing himself unsteady hands. Zoro then starts placing kisses lower down his back and starts fondling him down. Sanji moans brokenly, his legs starting to lose strength but Zoro keeps his upper body pressed against the wall and has his cock is resting between his cheeks. It’s the right height, Sanji thinks dizzy with want, it’s the right angle, his hips are placed a little taller but his angle could make it perfect for Zoro to fuck him hard and fast.

But Zoro’s cock leaves it’s rightful place between his cheeks and the kisses keep getting lower and Sanji could have an idea of where they are going if the hand on his balls wasn’t pulling just right. He is stroking himself by then, a slow rhythm that matches the way Zoro is touching him.

“Don’t come yet” Zoro commands him like a purr with his mouth somewhere in his lower back, then Sanji yelps when he feels Zoro bite his left cheek and starts rubbing his soappy fingers against his crack, Zoro press against his hole and slides his fingers down to his taint then back up again “Has anyone done this to you?” Sanji doesn’t answer. He is not sure he can talk, and if he can he won’t be able to control what he says. Zoro doesn’t seem to mind since his hand has left him to take the showerhead from him to rinse the soap of his asscrack. and Sanji just now realizes that Zoro’s been meaning to eat his ass and no, no one has done that to him “Do you want me to keep going?”

_Yes!_ He thinks. _Yes, he wants,_ _yes, please, yes, God, Zoro, he is dying, smoking hot Zoro, putting his mouth on him, yes!_

“Does that matter?” he says instead “you’ll do whatever you want anyway”

“It always matters,” he says nibbling at his thighs, the soft inner part of his legs and Sanji pushes his ass backward against his face, shameless and wanton and involuntary “Do you want me to?”

“Yes! God, fuck! yes!”

Zoro drops the shower head then to grab a hold of his ass with both his hands, squishing and pulling his cheeks apart to lick a slow drag and Sanji cries, bracing himself against the wall, pushing against Zoro’s face, mortifyingly surrendered. It feels good. It feels good to have Zoro this close to him, breathing into his skin, poking at his edges, breaching him in.

Zoro’s tongue is hot and wet and the bite of his sharp teeth soft on his skin and almost piercing when they leave his hole to roam his legs. Zoro’s jaw is smooth and he thinks of the beard burn he is not going to have because Zoro can't grow a beard for shit, still, Sanji feels like he is on fire when Zoro buries his face against him and scratches his tights down to the back of his knees, mouth and tongue diligent and restless on him, inside him. His diable jambe doesn’t feel this hot.

Sanji knows he is vocal during sex, his low voice rumbling against his partner's skin, he knows how to work it, how to get his partners off, when given the chance. Zoro has rendered dazed and speechless and he hasn’t stopped moaning but he _needs_. Zoro’s mouth making him feel loose and tense at the same time, like a souffle, held together only by the tension of his skin, Zoro’s tongue making him feel empty and ready to snap. Somehow, somehow he manages to talk.

“Zoro! Zoro, please, Zoro _give_ me” Zoro hands don’t waste time to roam up, one to wrap around his aching, leaking cock, the other to push his thumb against his spit slick hole, pushing inside, thumb and tongue, and stroking him once, twice and Sanji’s orgasm crashes against him like a storm in open sea, making him lose all sense of space except of where Zoro’s tongue is still deep inside him. His legs give in and Zoro holds him one handed, urging him on the after wave.

Zoro eases him down the wall and kisses his temple, and Sanji leans into it. Zoro then grabs the shower head that is still running and sprays his hand until it’s clean, then Sanji’s crotch, then his face. Sanji sputters, slaps the air and laughs, forgetting himself. When he opens his eyes Zoro is looking at him so softly it makes his chest feel full of cotton candy and he sighs.

“You making heart-eyes” Zoro says and Sanji panics, he can't slip, he can't be too loud, he can't be much so he snaps in a desperate attempt to regain control.

“’ve you been sitting on seiza this whole damn time, you shitty self sacrificing maniac?” Zoro just shrugs and the movement leads his sight to Zoro’s lap, the marimo hasn’t come. His cock looks painful, purple and weeping and Sanji winces “For fucks sake how long have you been hard? Stoic fuck, get up. I’m gonna suck your cock”

“You don't have to,” he says but still stands.

“No. I’m gonna” and then Sanji opens his mouth offering his tongue. Zoro’s cock twitches and leaks a fat dollop of precome and Sanji wants to taste him, classify the notes of his skin, sweat and come, and when he puts a hand on Zoro’s thigh the marimo takes the hint and guides himself to his mouth. The crown slides over his tongue, past his lips that he closes around Zoro and he sucks. Zoro grunts breathless and he feels hot and tastes slick and salty and oh God, he is gonna choke on it, oh _God,_ he wants to choke on it, he is going to have to learn how to deepthroat Sanji thinks exited. He starts to bob his head, he can’t get very far so he uses one of his hands but the other stays on Zoro’s thigh, feeling the muscles shift and tense trying not to move. Zoro would stay there and take whatever Sanji is willing to offer him for how long Sanji is willing to give it to him Sanji realizes as he lets him go to catch his breath, to mouth at the underside of his cock, to nibble and suck at his pelvis, just at the base of his cock.

“Don't do this often,” Sanji teases, pumping at Zoro’s shaft and following his hand with his tongue “you’ll have to let me practise” a weaker man would have whined at the implications but Zoro just grunts, his eyes screw shut and his fits clenching at his sides. “You can touch my head. I don't mind” one of the hands unclenches and Sanji can see Zoro shaking. _Shaking._ He places his hand gingerly on top of Sanji's head and he feels powerful, invincible. It’s only his mouth, his ashtray mouth, that has Zoro groaning and shaking and coming undone. He takes him on his mouth again, trying to swallow, trying to suck, moving his head faster, his fist tighter and Zoro’s fingers pull at his hair on instinct, not trying to guide him, letting Sanji set the pace and Sanji moans before Zoro can take his hand away, so he leaves it where it is.

It’s a lot. Sanji has stopped breathing, he wants to do good, his lungs are burning and the tug on his hair is making him dizzy again, he is trying to take a bit more of Zoro every time and his jaw is starting to hurt but Zoro is moaning quiet but steady and when Sanji draws back, sucking to swallow the spit and precome that have started to run down his chin Zoro moans loud and broken. Sanji nudges the tip of his tongue on the slit of Zoro to taste the pure essence of him and Zoro’s pant sounds too close to a sob so he goes back down, tracing a vein with the flat of his tongue and he is almost there, he almost has him all on his mouth, he can feel the heat of Zoro’s skin on the tip of his nose and his dull head almost breaching his throat and there are tears burning in his eyes when he hears Zoro calling him.

“Fuck! Fuck! Sanji, fuck, Sanji!” Zoro tries to pull away from him but Sanji slaps his hands away and goes back to the tip to suck, hard, and cradles his balls and massages them. He is too distracted by Zoro cursing short and restrained that is a surprise when he comes in his mouth, hot and thick and bitter and he can feel him throbbing on his mouth and Sanji quick hands eases him, stroking Zoro until he is done and he is pushing him away to drop in a heap in front of him. “You swallowed?!” Zoro questions him panting and Sanji just smiles, because Zoro looks useless and incredulous and entirely too satiated and he has done that. He feels his cock twitch between his legs and damn his entire libido but Zoro looks like that because he made him feel that good and that’s enough to have him interested in keeping going.

“What else was I supposed to do? Spit?” he feels too cocky, too proud and satisfied and Zoro lunges towards him to pull him by the neck and devour his mouth in a frenzied kiss and Sanji, Sanji is not going to complain.

They drag themselves to soak on the bathtub and it's nice, the warm water is nice on his skin and Sanji relaxes almost immediately. And it's nicer when Zoro hooks his arm around his waist and pulls him in, almost sitting him on his lap. Sanji has always suspected the marimo may be a cuddler for the way he lets the boys – mostly Chopper - nap on top of him and the way he is pulling at him, trying to get the most contact between them, trying to get Sanji to rest his head on his shoulder confirms it. And it's nice, too nice because he can feel Zoro’s tits rise and fall, warm and steady against his back. Zoro’s tight is pressed flush against his and Sanji has to fight the need to climb it, the hand that Zoro has on his thigh doesn't really helps him, clearly, and for fucks sake he has already come twice and he still wants more but Zoro is already dozing off besides him, or so he thinks until he feels his mouth against his neck, dragging his teeth gently over his skin.

“You’re restless. It’s annoying” Zoro’s hand is now decidedly on his thigh and his thumb inches towards his crotch and Sanji gasps and grabs onto Zoro’s knee “hmm, horny cook” he says placing kisses down his neck, over his shoulder, it makes Sanji want to give himself over.

“Whos… whose fault is that?” he gasps and Zoro dares to laugh so Sanji turns to kiss him in retribution, angry and fun, it feels like one of their fights, nothing serious, more bravatto than wrath. Zoro allows himself to be kissed but doesn't let him straddle him, he manhandles Sanji to sit over his open legs and Sanji can feel him reacting too and fuck it, he wants, and Zoro is willing and his hands are warm and steady where they hold him, he’s reliable and Sanji can let himself play with him and relax around him and the words come out before he can think them “Are you gonna take care of me, marimo-kun?”

“For as long as you let me,” he says, like it’s the most natural answer, like the only thing that makes sense to say. Sanji feels breathless, not sure if it's because of the answer, earnest and devoted, like Zoro himself, or because Zoro's hands have reached his groin, touching him like they've been doing this for ever. Please, let them do this forever.

The water does nothing to soften Zoro’s rough hands but it's thrilling to feel them roam his body, so different from the hands that tend to feel him up. Zoro must know about pressure points because when he buries his fingers on Sanji's muscles he can feel all tension seep away from him, his body melting against Zoro, he can feel pleasure running down his veins like hot broth and pooling on his loins even if Zoro’s hands are nowhere near his cock, then the bastard pinches one of his nipples and Sanji is too out of it, too focused on the pleasure that Zoro hands strip out of him that he hasn't has time to react to his own moan, loud and abandoned, to the way his body seizes or to Zoro’s laugh, like caster sugar, rough and sweet.

“God, fuck, Zoro, I want you inside” he confesses when Zoro skims his fingers over his hole and Zoro grunts and bucks up his hips, not as unaffected as Sanji had taken him. It’s thrilling, and he hopes it never stops being thrilling, it makes him want to gorge himself in it.

“Not today” Zoro grumbles and Sanji feels in danger somehow, becoming aware of himself, there is a crescendo in his chest that has nothing to do with who close Zoro’s naked skin is to his, he's been breathless since Zoro had tried to cuddle him in the bath but now it feels like a cannonball to the chest, like the oxygen in the room in not enough, his palms itch, he wants to run, Zoro had said no, he had said no twice, he doesn’t wants him. It lasts until Zoro’s callused hand grabs him by the jaw and tilts him for a kiss. Zoro’s hand is not gentle, Sanji thinks he is only capable of so much of it, but it’s not rough either, a bit desperate, a bit adoring and Zoro’s kiss is allconsuming, Sanji can only forget himself again on it, then he feels a finger breach him in.

He pants, truly out of air this time, blinded by need and he tries to move, take it deeper, bounce on it, but Zoro has his left hand over his torso, holding fast to his right shoulder, keeping him still, kissing the back of his neck. He pulls his finger out and circles his hole, prodding the muscle, still somewhat loose form his kisses and then enters him again, a bit deeper, and start to move it. Sanji wants to beg but he can't find the words, the coherent side of his brain disconnected for the moment. He holds onto Zoro with one hand, tries to make Zoro's right hand fuck him deeper. Zoro nips at his ear and shushes him

“Shh shh shh, patience cook, you'll enjoy it, I promise. I'll take care of you” Sanji moans loud, desperate, there is something cracking inside of him for Zoro’s tone and he doesn't care to check – it’s something that begs for lazy mornings and cold nights and a shoulder to hide his face when the nightmares and the iron come – because there is a second finger making way inside of him, steady, slow. They are thick, Sanji can feel himself getting filled and Zoro knows it, he moves his fingers in slow circles, he pushes them one first then the other. Sanji is sure he'll need another to fit the marimo inside but Zoro seems to think that two is enough for today, so he feeds Sanji his fingers and lets Sanji move when they are almost all the way inside. He is still choking on his own voice on his own words when Zoro’s palm cups his perineum and his fingers start scissoring inside him, he wants to bounce, he wants to take them deeper so he moves and Zoro lets him, pulling out and in again with his fingers spread. Zoro stops then, pushing his hips, his cock against Sanji’s lower back and Sanji stops too, to feel him solid over his back, his arduous breath over his spine, heavy and in conscious intervals, his hand in his shoulder tightening. Zoro kisses his back, his neck his shoulders and rests his forehead on his nape, his hips working slowly, steady “hold on to me” he says with a growl that goes all the way down Sanji’s spine to his toes “let me jerk you”

Sanji’s hands are trembling, his thighs are aching from unleashed tension, his lungs are burning, he feels open and unused. He wants more. He grabs onto Zoro’s hips with both hands and lets himself fall back against his chest. Zoro’s left hand lets go of his shoulder then, it slides down heavy and hot over his chest, open over his stomach, squeezes his tight and caresses his groin before fondling his balls. Sanji grunts, it makes Zoro grunt as well. The fingers inside of him make something complicated and push forward inside him as Zoro slides his hand over his cock with just the right pressure, Sanji yelps and moves his hips unconsciously. He can feel the marimo’s triumphant smile against his neck, predatory and about to satiate his hunger. Zoro jerks him at a steady pace that would not make him come on itself, and moves his fingers off tempo. Pulling them out and pushing them in, pushing forward and Sanji is going to come from it, from the pressure of the fingers to that spot he can’t reach by himself, from the tension building inside his loins. Then Zoro bites him.

He comes screaming. The swordsman's name on his lips, falling forward. Zoro’s fast hands leave him to hold him from his wait to rut against his back, buck against him, the same _ah ah ah_ sounds leaving his mouth as he comes, louder this time.

He should feel self-conscious, he should feel ashamed of himself, he had told himself not to be loud, not to be needy, to not covet the sounds Zoro makes, he thinks as he is falling towards the water, unanchored and limp.

Before his face can touch the water Zoro whips him around and kiss the air off his lungs, his neck and jaw and cheeks, his stupid eyebrows, his temple and his mouth again. Zoro holds him tight and buries his face in the crook of his neck, gathering his breath just behind Sanji’s ear, breathing the sweat of his hair.

“Sanji, _Sanji”_ he says and Sanji feels his bruised heart on his throat constrict and the butterflies on his stomach throwing a revolution. Unsure, he lets his lips rest over the green stands and his arms circle Zoro’s shoulders. Then Zoro’s stomach rumbles .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, kudos and comments make me happy and thank you for reading~~


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> them be flirting

Fifteen minutes later they are both in the kitchen, clean and dressed and damp. Sanji's muscle memory working to make them something to eat. Something nice and simple, something to go along with white rice, he thinks, checking to see if there is any sea-beast meat left. He finds enough for two portions in the freezer and manages not to hum while cooking.

Splayed on the table Zoro nods off, he’s facing the kitchen, too hungry to really sleep. He looks happy with himself and pleased with the world. Another fifteen minutes pass and Sanji places a dish in front of him. Zoro stirs awake, chasing away the sleepiness and hums in approval of the food.

“The crates of booze come by tomorrow so there is nothing I can offer you mosshead-kun” Sanji says sitting in front of Zoro, watching him inhale half the food with gusto, the way his cheek fills with food making him look like a hamster. He doesn't mind, he knows his crew food habits, this is good-usual and he has more in the pot simmering low to keep warm for second servings. The bite marks on Zoro’s neck are fading already and Sanji is sure they will be gone before the rest of the crew come back by the evening, and he himself may be a genetic engineered freak gone wrong but Zoro really is a monster, a real life one, beautiful, terrifying, incomprehensible and unbeatable in his conviction, and Sanji is not sure why that turns him on, but it does, he feels like he could bite him and bruise him and scratch him to his heart’s content and Zoro would heal though the night only so he could do it all over again the next day and Zoro would allow him just to eat him whole.

Sanji is distracted trying to figure out for umpteenth time which is the marimo’s dominant hand because he keeps changing his chopstick from hand to hand when he feels Zoro’s shoeless feet rub against his shin, a wordless thank you, it has Sanji feeling a bit overwhelmed in a great way. He fixes his eyes in his own fork and dish and starts eating before Zoro can see him blushing.

“What do you wanna do with this now?” Zoro asks, pacing down his bites, waving between them with his chopsticks, Sanji's brain is still trying to connect back because Zoro’s foot is still rubbing softly against his shin and his mouth acts without him giving it permission when he says.

“Now? Don't know, what do you want from this?” so clever, so in charge of his own reactions.

“I want you” Zoro says, looking at him straight in the eyes, foot softly falling to the floor, Sanji misses it already, the warmth of the contact, but Zoro's eye has him pinned in place. Zoro wants him, which is exactly what Sanji wants but can’t say, not calm and collected like the swordsman, not without smearing his feelings all over the dinner table, not without bleeding his heart through his mouth “All of you. I won't expect you to stop flirting with every pair of tits you come across, but I want the rest, every night to be just mine.”

“Okay” he chokes out, not feeling hungry for the first time in years, his stomach bubbling with something like sparkling honey. He keeps eating, however, there is no wasting of food on his sight.

“Okay?!”

“Yeah. I don’t wanna fuck anyone else, Zoro.” He manages to sound natural and Zoro looks at him like he wasn't expecting that, eyebrows high and hopeful and it's too much, Sanji doesn't deserve it but he wants it so much. “Unless you are watching” he says with a wild smirk because he is a self-sabotaging idiot and needs a way out of a real conversation.

“Oh, piss off.” Zoro says pushing his face with his entire palm on his way to the kitchen “Do we have green tea? I’m gonna eat the rest of this!”

“Oii! oii, no! Leave me half of that meat” 

“You can have my meat whenever you want” Zoro mumbles and the rude fucker deserves a kick in the head. He knows Zoro could have dodged it but doesn't and they haven't changed that much, have they? It's nice, he hopes it’s nice, he thinks, putting the kettle to boil and rummaging for the tea while Zoro eats straight from the pot.

________________

The afternoon sails by lazy and they don’t kiss again because at any moment someone can come back and see them, besides the firsts crates of produce and groceries start arriving and Sanji needs to jot down what does arrive, what else do they need and how much of it. Zoro helps move the crates to the hold and what’s left from there up to the pantry behind the kitchen. He stays back sometimes, away from sight like waiting for something, expectant looking at Sanji and he doesn't know what the marimo wants but it makes him smile and think of sneaking to the dark corner of the pantry to make out even though he knows he can't, because Zoro doesn't need horny and needy even if he thinks he does so he picks up his pace and tries hard to focus on the tasks he still has left. 

Zoro leaves the second chore to the ones start arriving and Sanji tells himself that he should not miss the way Zoro’s back moves when handling heavy objects, that there are better things to worry about right the moment. Still, though, the marimo follows him from room to room, not talking to him, not even looking at him, just sharing his presence like an overgrown green cat, the bite marks gone from his skin before any of the rest even step foot on the ship.

When Luffy arrives, last and ready to eat, he finds Sanji finishing peeling potatoes for dinner in the garden to the last rays of sunshine, meat braising in a stew in the locked down kitchen, Zoro napping close to him. In his enthusiasm, Luffy steps on Zoro’s stomach and tries to cling to him to eat a raw potato. Zoro and Sanji hit him at the same time, sending him off board into the sea. Sanji respects his captain but God he is stupid. 

From the other side of the ship, Usopp looks at them, waiting for one of the two to take responsibility and fish Luffy out of the water. With a long-suffering sigh Zoro stands, strips to his trousers and jumps off. Sani runs into the galley then, his mind racing to delightful but inappropriate thoughts of half-naked Zoro.

He waits until Luffy is back on board to actually start cooking and with the sound of his captain and first mate fighting he finishes the potatoes for dinner, he makes time to go below-deck to tell Brook - who is in watch duty the next day - and Nami-san what’s missing, what’s yet to arrive and how much money he estimate he will need to expend while on town tomorrow. 

When he gets back to the galley Luffy - as he manages every day - has slipped his way into the kitchen and Sanji finds him wrestling his way into the stew pot. Zoro walks inside right before Sanji kicks their oh so admired captain out and locks the door. Luffy sometimes forgets he has object permanence (mostly when he is sneaking into the kitchen just to be annoying) so Sanji hopes he doesn't remember there is another entryway from the infirmary.

“Alright, cook. What's wrong?” Zoro asks and it makes him jump, his deep-blue voice making the hair on his nape and arms stand on edge, it pins him to the wall without hands, without the warmth of his chest “You were acting weird all month, all sad and on edge. You still look kinda sad.”

“What? Nothing” he says on reflect, because he knows Zoro sees him and will see the lie someday but not today, God, not today.

“C’mon, you have kept me five feet apart since lunch,” he says getting close to him but keeping those five feet of distance as proof. Zoro leans against the sink, arms crossed over his chest, indolent but looking at everything Sanji does and Sanji feels a pull, the same pull he had been feeling since he knows the swordsman, that thing that made him fight at every chance at the beginning. “Haven’t fought me all day. You haven’t yelled at me either. Tell me, I want to know.” 

“You do, don't you?” Sanji says playing dumb, too focused on the pull he doesn't need to refuse now, does he? Before he realises, he is standing in front of Zoro, chin high and defiant, Zoro smells like salt and ocean and he wants to touch him, to kiss him, to mark him again. The muscles of his tanned arms thick and bulging, Sanji can't help remember the way those arms held him just that morning, how welcomed he felt there.

“Why wouldn't I? We are together now. I want to know what bothers you.” Zoro doesn't move, doesn't take his eye off of him, doesn't look at his mouth but there is a smile hiding on his frown. 

“Just overthinking some shit” he says and if he steps in a little when Zoro puts his hands on the counter behind himself just to feel the heat of Zoro through the short inches between their clothes it doesn't matter because they are _together_ and he really, really wants to kiss him.

“Want me to help clear that pretty head of yours?” Zoro gives him a once over, his eye stopping at his zipper, at his throat, on his lips and Sanji feels shivers running all over his spine.

“Aww, you think I’m pretty” Sanji taunts, mock pouting, swaying closer, feeling brave enough to maybe kiss the marimo’s stupid face. 

“I think you are fucking gorgeous” Zoro deadpans, soft eyes and unselfconscious, and Sanji feels himself blush up to his hairline.

“Shut your shitty mouth up!” 

Zoro doesn't get to drag him by the waist for a kiss because Luffy starts banging on the door, demanding to be left in to eat meat, Sanji, meaaat!!

________________

Zoro laughs. They are all laughing really, but Zoro laughs. Sanji looks at him across the galley, the way his back trembles with joy, his face hidden in the crook of his arm, surrendered to glee, only ever to glee, Sanji knows now the face he makes when he surrenders to ectasis too. Zoro lifts his head to breath and there are crow’s feet forming at the corner of his eyes, adorning his tanned skin, Sanji wonders if he will ever tire of this, of looking for Zoro’s eyes when he laughs.

It’s still ugly. There is still that vein bulging in the marimo’s forehead, the same one that made an appearance when Sanji took him on his hand and stroked him through completion, his eyebrows are scrunched together, highlighting his ever present frown that changes angles when he moans dark and deep on his chest, chest that broadens with each guffaw, like Sanji felt it move, over him and behind him, against his naked skin. Zoro’s fist hits the table, once, twice and again more loud than violent and Sanji knows those hands now, the way they touch his hair, the way they close around him, around his hands and his cock.

Its Brook singing his story this time, how he had to escape from a fan-hoard in the island – if only they had been pretty ladies… - and Zoro looks at him, across the table, laughter turning into a smile, and then he flips him the finger and Sanji feels the anger boiling in his veins long enough to understand something that had seemed odd the entire day.

“You wanted me to be mean!” he shouts across the dinner table and Zoro stops laughing in a panicked startle before he schools his features. 

“Out!” Zoro grunts and only because he knows him and is the only one looking at him, he gets to see the start of the beet-red blush on his cheeks. Zoro gets out of the kitchen without waiting for him to get up, fast enough that no one besides him understands what just happened. 

Sanji excuses himself to the ladies with the excuse of needing to kick Zoro’s impolite ass and the promise of a delicious mid-afternoon snack and slips yelling his usual bravatto out the door. It may be too soon to talk about telling the crew, he doesn't know if he wants them to know just yet. Not at least just after a (spectacular) hump, he did confess his desire to never sleep with anyone ever again, but they haven’t had a proper talk about this thing and even if he knows Zoro doesn't fool around and won’t compromise the crews balance, they still need to kind of put some field rules. 

Zoro grabs him by the arm and drags him, surprisingly accurately, and without getting lost, to somewhere the crew can’t hear or see them.

“What the hell, cook?” 

“You wanted it to hurt so I’d be easier to get over me! That's why you were being a cunt!” Sanji whispers right to the point and Zoro hums in agreement looking away blush high on his cheekbones now and Sanji can't help but laugh, Zoro looks oddly adorable avoiding his eyes getting caught in his badly though plan. “You fucking idiot!” he says, smiling, because he can’t help it “I was gonna tell you today, during lunch, then I would have drunk myself stupid and tomorrow I would have looked for someone to drown my sorrows with.”

“You expected me to reject you?” Zoro says wiping his head so fast Sanji can see the tendon that promises neck pain for a couple of hours. Zoro says, like the mere thought of him not wanting Sanji was blasphemous.

“Yeah! And apparently, I think of you more highly than you do of me. I never expected you to treat me like shit.” Sanji says because he can’t help but to tease, he knows it would rile him up and he has always enjoyed how easily he can make Zoro angry.

“I didn't expect you to treat me like shit! I _wanted_ you to treat me like shit! So it wouldn't hurt as bad” Zoro answers in an angry whisper that only feeds Sanji’s giddy energy.

“Didn’t hurt you that bad, right?” he can’t control his face, he can barely control his arms and legs from dancing and his eyes from doing something weird so he lets himself smile like an maniac because it’s safer. “Only some nice bites, no?” Zoro frown hardens in front of him.

“Don't do that” 

“Do what?” Sanji asks, the cold feeling of dread rushing down his spine, his feet suddenly itching to make contact with something, he should reign it in, he should control it, even if his smile is slipping, he wants to know, he doesn't want Zoro to think him as crazy because he suddenly decides to start kicking.

“Smile at me like that. It does things to me.” Zoro confesses and Sanji can breathe again, he can see again the blush in Zoro’s face and the tight lines of him holding himself back. He can see Zoro eye, dark, looking at him fierce and stubborn “If you do it again, I will have to kiss you and I don't care who sees us.” 

“Then kiss me you piece of shit” Sanji says, embarrassingly happy about the fact that Zoro doesn't seem to be able to contain himself much either. Zoro grabs him by the waist and pulls him chest to chest, and turns them 90° so he can pin Sanji to the wall, a pattern Sanji thinks right before Zoro puts their mouths together and then he doesn't think much anymore. 

It’s sweet and burns him so nice from the inside, like spiked cocoa by a fire, all desperation having melted hours ago. Zoro rubs absentmindedly at his hips with his thumbs and Sanji allows himself to throw one hand over Zoro’s broad shoulders, just below the three dangling gold earrings, the other one holding onto the marimo by the haramaki, scratchy wool under his fingers, he is going to steal it one day, just to use as a pillow, no matter how gross it is.

They break apart when the sound of Luffy and Usopp leaving the kitchen puts them on alert. Zoro kisses his temple before stepping away from him and Sanji has trouble thinking through. Then he realises that if they want the crew to not notice them, they should be at least yelling at each other. He is ready to storm off, pretending to be pissed and hoping Zoro follows his line of thought when the marimo pulls him by the sleeve.

“Let me take you tomorrow to town, we can pretend you are making me carry things for the kitchen.” Zoro says looking at their feet and Sanji is suddenly aware that prideful and self-assured Zoro is still nervous about what Sanji wants “We can do whatever you like, we can find somewhere nice…” 

He is gonna drink fucking bleach just to kill the damn butterflies. Sanji leans in with a bold impulse and kisses Zoro in the corner of his mouth, and answers with a quick nod, then steps into fight stance. 

“Draw your swords marimo-kun, let's spar” Sanji says with a wink and Zoro frown hardens but his blush betrays him, he understands Sanji, nonetheless, and bends his knees to receive Sanji’s kick. This will be fun, Sanji thinks, if he manages to forget himself.

________________

Sanji doesn't sleep that night. Thinking euphoric of broad shoulders and warm hands. Thick fingers and oven-hot mouths. _Somewhere nice_ Zoro had said, somewhere Zoro can lay him on a bed and gets his hands on him, somewhere Sanji can look at him in his handsome wilderness, brown hot skin against his pale cream one, if he lets himself fantasize he can think of all the ways he wants Zoro to have him. Will Zoro push him down in the mattress, ass up and open him fast and efficient to slide inside him and fuck him like a rent-boy? Or will Zoro pin him down the bed, hands over his head and finger him torturously slow, to see every face, every expression he makes while he moves inside him? He thinks thrilled, willing his cock to remain soft, keeping his wants for the next day. Will Zoro have him straddle him, have him ride his cock shameless and wild? Will he be true to his word and let him fuck him? Sanji has thought of that too. Of how it would be to bend Zoro over the dining table (he won't do it (he may do it)) and have his way with him, of filling him in, Zoro’s cock between their two bellies, drinking in his moans.

Sanji thinks of Zoro hands on him, of their sweaty skins and ragged breaths, Sanji wonders of ways in which Zoro can make him scream. Sanji think of them laying on bed after, of him seeking the warmth of Zoro’s resting self and Zoro turning away for a nap, pulling away from him, he thinks of Zoro dressing up and walking away from him, away from his needy hands, his needy mouth, overwhelmed and tired of him.

  
Sanji doesn't sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos and comments make me happy and as always thanks for reading~~


	4. Chapter 4

He gets up early to prepare breakfast for the crew, the muscle memory it takes is a far cry from yesterday’s lunch, almost sleepwalking to serve Brook his tea when he comes to join him in the kitchen at five and Robin her first coffee of the morning at six. He has biscuits with Brook and toast with Robin and she looks at him, attentive to his odd behaviour, so he dotes on her harder, flails his arms and sings her praises and munches on scraps of what he is making for the rest of the crew. Robin smiles at him softly, always seen through him but deciding not to push him to talk. He remembers to hide Franky’s breakfast before Luffy barges in demanding, as usual, food.

He has time to check on his projects hiding in the pantry, busying his mind with the tasks of deciding and tasting what barrels of meads and beer should be bottled for a second fermentation, and which ones of mead could be left to be a dryer alcohol and which ones of beer could be a good whiskey. The miso is ready to use, same as most of the pickles and ferments, the soy sauce, however, still needs some more months to be ready. He counts his preserves, making sure Luffy hasn't broken in to gorge himself stupid(er). Everything is there and he sneaks out a jar of canned peaches he gobbles on his kitchen.

He goes down to the storage to get a couple of sugar cane bundles from the lot he received the day before, he thinks he can make one into rum before Zoro shows up, and the other into raw sugar, all the while chewing on a cinnamon stick because there is flavour in it but not substance and the heat of it distracts his mind from trying to smoke so early.

Zoro wanders in half sleep at around seven and leans over him to peek over what’s for breakfast and Sanji can feel himself tense up, waking up the rest he needs to stand on watch and not slip into something that could give him away. The hectic energy of the everyday breakfast a welcomed distraction from Zoro and his own concerns.

It's about ten when the crew start leaving the ship, he has to beg for money for the kitchen to Nami again but, hey, that’s routine. Zoro is waiting for him on the docks, leaning against the rope that keeps the Sunny still, Sanji’s heart jumps in anticipation and fear in equal measures so he lights his first cigarette and walks past him waiting for him to follow. It doesn't take long for Zoro to catch up to him.

___________________

They are far from the ship when Zoro holds his hand and it burns. There are people watching, judging him and being in public has always put him on edge. He is walking hand in hand with the next best swordsman in the world and he is just a cook, a destitute prince, dead and forgotten, a cold mouldy leftover dish he is not willing to feed to Zoro and Zoro looks beautiful in the sunlight, with his bronze skin and forest green hair and his arm is numb up to his elbow so he snakes his hand out of Zoro's hold and lits another cigarette as an excuse, he could have done it with his other hand, and his mouth will taste like ash if Zoro tries to kiss him. He can feel the anxiety bubbling to the surface and he wants to run from it, fight it off, start an argument but when Zoro looks back at him he can't, because Zoro’s expression is serene and happy and all for him and Sanji wants to kiss him, wants to run away, wants to throw his arms around his neck wants to scream but can't do any of those things so he lets the cigarette consume itself between his fingers, halfway to his mouth.

Sanji has been in town already, ordering and haggling necessities for the kitchen in the market and docks, this would be his time to wander around, buy little indulgences, discover new ingredients, new techniques and learn from the local cuisine. He could do it still, he tries, but Zoro trails alongside him, taking form him the things he buys, asking for mouthfuls of the things he is relentlessly snaking, leaning into him to whisper in his ear, dry little comments that make him snort and forget himself until the heat of Zoro body becomes scolding, until the need to touch becomes unbearable, so he escapes of his grasp. He gains time buying bottles and glass tubes to DIY a still for his homemade distillery he asks to be send to the ship, he buys a new wok too, because the last one has an imprint of Franky’s face on the bottom. It wasn't Nami’s fault, Franky had scared her and she had just brandished it like a weapon just yesterday.

Zoro steals a green apple from some market stall and offers it to him and Sanji remembers that this is a date. It’s a fucking date, he hasn't been on a date before, there is nowhere to go when you live in a vessel full of men that feel more like uncles and cousins, and whatever he had with Pudding was never real they both knew it. He takes the apple and bites into it, he is not one to reject food, but he feels Zoro's eye on him, on his mouth wet from sticky juice, he tries to focus on the apple, on the mechanics of eating, on the taste, tart and ripe, and it makes him shiver satisfyingly. There is juice flowing down his chin that he wipes with his hand before taking another bite.

“Give me some.” Zoro says, taking the apple from him. Zoro does not bite the apple. Zoro leans in to steal a kiss from him and Sanji freezes there in the middle of the street. Zoro licks his lips but doesn't push for more and sniggers while pulling away “It's a good apple” he says, voice echoing like sound moving in caves underwater, biting into the apple this time and tossing it back to him. Sanji barely catches it, overwhelmed by the litany of _want want want_ that echoes on his head.

He eats the apple whole, seeds and all. This time, when Zoro holds his hand he doesn't let go.

_______________________

Zoro spots a place. It's the kind of place that charges by the hour. There is a brothel a couple of buildings to the left but it looks fine. There are no drunks leaning against the walls or hurt women shouting at anyone as they look at it from across the street.

Sanji squeezes Zoro’s hand and they go in.

Zoro pays for the room.

______________________

This is his one chance isn't it? He is going to get what he's been yearning for today, before Zoro realizes he is a broken thing and removes himself from his side, the wise thing to do, after all, he thinks. So when Zoro closes the door behind them he slams the marimo against it, ready to devour him starting by his mouth. He tastes like apple and growls into his mouth letting him in, trying to eat him as well.

“Eager” Zoro says, when Sanji lets him breathe, voice already a broken grovel. His hands, full of everything Sanji has bought – because he wouldn’t let him carry any of it – are firm over his hips keeping him still, not letting him go, not letting him rut against him either. They rub idly over the waistband of his trousers, big, hot and heavy and Sanji hates them only because they are not touching him all over. Zoro leans in for another kiss and Sanji tries to scratch the clothes out of him.

Zoro pushes him away gently to step away from the door, he puts his hands on Sanji's face to slow him down and then stops the kiss. He strolls into the room, leaves the bags in a corner and starts patting his pockets.

“Imma take a quick shower” he says pulling out of his yukata a glass jar with an oily clear liquid inside and throwing it in the bed along with a pack of rubbers. “Or you wanna go first?”

“Wait, you didn't shower this morning?”

“I'm gonna shower now.” That's a no then “By the way, did you take a dump this morning?” Zoro asks and Sanji groans, he knows why he is asking, he knows that is something that should be asked. Still, what a way to kill the mood “Did you?”

“ _Yes_ ” he answers, covering his face.

“Good! So did I”

Then Zoro shuts himself in the room’s bathroom. It gives Sanji time to look around; it is a nice place, they are on the third floor and it’s small but that's to be expected, the bathroom where Zoro disappeared is attached to the room by a wooden door and the bags are in the corner closest to the exit door. There is a double bed and two bedside tables, a desk and a chair with rope marks. It all looks clean, when he sits in the bed it feels comfortable and when he digs a little, he finds that the sheets are white and starch-clean.

There is a mirror on the ceiling... for fucks sake there is a mirror in the ceiling.

______________________

It's not ten minutes after when Zoro gets out of the bathroom, his clothes on his arm and only wearing a towel and Sanji curses the butterflies, he curses Zoro and he curses himself.

“You’re not gonna shower, then” he asks, throwing his clothes on the desk.

“I’m clean” Sanji mutters, every anxiety of the morning having turned into anger as so often happens to him, he throws himself back on the bed, eyes closed because there is a fucking _mirror_ in the ceiling, and he doesn't want to look at his face, he doesn't want to know what he looks like right that moment, he doesn't want to be there. He wants the glorious memory of a great fuck and the sore muscles of it, the bruises and bitemarks and the fading feeling of Zoro still inside him. He wants to feel everything but is petrified, the initial impulse gone and if Zoro doesn't do something to him soon he is going to do something violent and stupid.

“Mmmh” he hears Zoro sounding unimpressed from somewhere in front of him and then he feels the bed dip right next to his left thigh and right of his head “What do you want then?” Zoro says besides his ear, voice dark, sweet, burnt caramel that will scorch him. Zoro bites his ear and Sanji's pulse skyrockets, still, he doesn't move, body tense now in a different way, like some kind of animal ready to attack to set itself free and flee. And Sanji finds that he's liking this, disturbing as it is, feeling like a prey between Zoro’s claws, under Zoro's unnerving attention “So many clothes.” Zoro grumbles sliding a hand under his jacket, scratching his left ribs over his shirt and Sanji grounds his teeth and successfully chokes a gasp “If you don’t wanna do this I won’t be mad”

Sanji pulls him on himself then and Zoro falls naked over him. He rolls them over, sitting on his lap, towering above Zoro, only the fucking towel covering him. That fucking impulse to fight everything taking him over, and having Zoro naked under him is a dream but today is not for that. He kisses Zoro, though, desperate and hotangry, bites his neck and jaw and Zoro lets him, holding tight to his thighs, jaw set and taking all of Sanji, because he knows him and because he knows sometimes aggression is the only way to feel in control. Sanji pulls away to rid of his jacket, of Zoro's towel and his own shoes and socks. There is so much to look at, so much to feel, muscle sculpted to deadly perfection, light skin scars aplenty on that tan skin, and then the one that crosses Zoro's chest. Sanji hates it. Sanji hates it when he skims his fingers over the roughness of it, he hates it because it reminds him he is a coward, that he is a burden, that he is still dreaming of faery tales. Sanji hated it for a long time before he understood what it meant to him seeing Zoro willing to die for a dream, what it meant to him seeing him almost die again for his crew, blind and feeling like a sweet roll of self-hate and want. Want that now nest heavy on his chest, that grew and twisted into things he can’t control, it's not just want anymore, he can't say it is. He’d let himself bleed to death rather than seen Zoro almost die for a third time, and that right there has never been want.

He kisses the top of the scar, where the blade had left Zoro's body, and lower, where Zoro's heart is beating strong. He kisses the second stitch, ugly and raw use of kitchen twine and needles, Zoro probably doesn't feel anything in the dead tissue of it, but Zoro instincts are good and he had kissed his hand the day before, Sanji only hopes he understands. This is not a kink, he has plenty others, this is an apology, a recognition. This is worship.

He tries to kiss lower, to sink to his knees and offer his mouth again. He is down, tongue over the hollow of Zoro's sternum when Zoro pulls him up by the neck of his shirt. He is a prey tonight, he remembers, he has chosen to be. Zoro stare is set on him, deadly intent, hungry. Mouth ready to kiss him, ready to eat him, to call for him...

“Is that a mirror on the ceiling?!”

They dissolve in a fit of giggles.

They drag themselves laughing to lay properly on the bed, this is stupid and ridiculous but Zoro is laughing alongside him, that ugly vein making an appearance, the crow’s feet too, a dark laugh dragged from the very depths of the ocean Sanji thinks, when Zoro smile slots against his own. Zoro kisses like he could do that forever, like he doesn't need anything else and soon Sanji can't think of anything but the smooth drag of Zoro’s jaw against his own, and the weight of his body over him.

Zoro's back is warm today and when his hands find the small of it, he scratches trying to make him moan like yesterday. Zoro does moans and his hips push against him, he laughs breathlessly against Sanji's mouth and Sanji, driven by curiosity, drags his nails up and down Zoro’s spine, over the planes of his shoulder blades and between every rib. It has Zoro panting against his neck, heavy, happy and damp. He has enough time to feel invincible before Zoro shoves one hand inside his trousers while the other fumbles with the zipper and ok, alright, it feels just as great.

Zoro’s clever, broad, ambidextrous hands have him clothless soon after and they fit so good. They fit! Zoro’s cock a hot line against his own need and Zoro laughs when Sanji pushes his hips up and lifts them both from the bed, holds him by the waist and ruts against him so Sanji lifts him again.

“Do you…?”

“Yeah yeah”

“How do you …?

“I don't know! I don't care! I just want you!” _Shit_ too much too needy he thinks but Zoro still has his hand wrapped around both their cocks and is kissing his temple, running a rough thumb over his cheekbone. Sanji forgets how to breathe for a second and it takes him a moment to rip the words from his tongue “Just… don't wanna face the mirror”

“On four then”

He turns around and braces himself on his hands a knees, he is shaking, he’s scared, he can recognise that to himself, not of Zoro parting his flesh but of this being the only time, of him being boring, bland and unsalted, of Zoro realising he is not worth it. He is scared of asking, of his own voice and what it could reveal, of the way his body can betray him. Of wanting so much he has cried.

Zoro puts his hands on his waist and his stupid elbows buckle beneath him and he lands on them, still shaking, trying hard to keep himself together. Zoro hums disapprovingly and pushes him down so he lays flat on the bed.

“Like this it may feel weirder,” Zoro says running both his thumbs up and down his spine until it manages to settle Sanji's nerves and he can only sigh as they go back up again “is this better for you?” Sanji hums as an answer, and Zoro understands “Good, then I’ll take care of you” he says for the second time in two days and it hurts somewhere near his heart, like a half-healed bruise, like the mending of bone. Is he gonna let him? Sanji thrust him with his life, he can trust him with this, it’s not as important, it’s just his whim, it’s Sanji giving himself to Zoro without Zoro knowing it.

Sanji nods and lets go of the weight that is himself over the bed, he cushions his head between his arms to make himself comfortable, to hide his face. Zoro grabs one of the pillows and shoves it underneath him, lifting his hips just slightly. It makes him feel exposed but Zoro seeing his face would be worse. He feels Zoro shift behind him and then his lips on his neck and his chest on his back and his cock between his cheeks. Zoro kisses him, his shoulders and his spine while his hands make trails down his sides, up his legs, holding his hips steady so he can push into him. And Sanji trembles in anticipation, his heart beating so hard it may run away from his chest, Zoro is all over him, surrounding him and is still not enough.

“I'm gonna take my time with you” Zoro informs him, breathing between his shoulder blades, kissing down his back, sucking at every bump of his backbone and biting at his sides. Sanji would like to see it, the marks of Zoro’s attentions, is Zoro so through with every fuck he has? “and make it nice” he hisses like he is trying to wind him up by being completely honest.

He moves Sanji's right leg up, bending his knee so he can have better access then he bites at his hip bones and the hollows of his back. A tightening in the clasp that Zoro has of his tights is the only signal he gets before Sanji feels Zoro’s wet tongue up his crack, then one of the hands climbs up to his left cheek to pull it away and he is so open, there is nothing inside of him yet and he feels so open and in display. Zoro hot breath puffs on his wet skin and then his tongue is prodding in, opening him slowly, steady and wet, so wet, he can hear the sound of it, obscene and filthy and mind-melting good. Sanji tries to press back against him but Zoro’s hands keep him pinned to the bed, it makes his cock harden fast and leak between himself and the pillow. Zoro licks broadly to his hole and then pushes his tongue deep inside of him, a tight muscle that twitches and shifts inside of him and Sanji chokes a moan and thinks that given the time and privacy Zoro could make him come just from this but right now this is just not enough.

Zoro pulls away then. He groans and shifts behind him and then Sanji hears the distinct crinkle of the rubber being ripped open and the pop of a bottle opening.

“Here” he says stretching over him to hold his right hand “I need you to…” he places his hand over his right cheek and urges him to pull. Sanji obliges. There is a second there, where he is spreading himself open for Zoro, where nothing is touching him but himself when he thinks Zoro is going to get up and walk out the door, but Zoro's hand is in his left cheek now, holding him open and Sanji can sniff the clear smell of the oil. Zoro finger is on his hole the next moment, slick and girthy, pushing lightly so Sanji lets him in, the tip of it slides in easily, then Sanji feels the second knuckle breach him and he moans, the oil helping them along, skipping over the coarse feeling of Zoro's finger, displayed like this instead of sitting on Zoro’s lap allows the swordsman to reach deeper, soon after there is a second finger joining and Zoro opens him slowly, patiently in a way that Sanji isn't, mess of raw nerves, moans and curses. Zoro finds his prostate a moment later and Sanji won’t whimper, he won't. He knows his body betrays him, though, when he shakes violently, cock leaking steady over the pillow.

“One more, love-cook” Zoro grumbles behind him, restrained and hungry. Zoro pours more oil on him, it’s cold against his skin and then there is a third finger poking at his hole, sliding inside him, slowly, steady, calm. The stretch is delightfully overwhelming and Sanji feels his control over his lungs slip, forgetting how to breathe out.

He’s tried this, he’s had this, there was that lovely lady in Arabasta that had slipped a finger in him right before he had made her come for a third time, it had made him finish before he expected, he had finished her with his mouth as compensation. there was the dark haired young man that had given him a blow job behind some ruins in Skypedia and pressed a finger inside him looking for something and made him see stars, the rust haired man he had hired in Desrossa’s red district that had opened him painless and efficiently and, in an outburst of unprofessionalism, had offered him to finish the act for the same kind of money he already had paid. And himself countless times after that. None of it had felt like Zoro, like the way his big fingers had opened him yesterday, like how much more care he was putting now. Sanji feels like he had been worked open for hours now, the slow drag of Zoro's fingers on his insides making it impossible to maintain some sense of time, some sense of anything except the pressing need coiling and bubbling low in his belly.

Zoro presses his fingers inside him again, deep as they can go, spreads them open and drags them out, pushing at that spot that drags a desperate sound out of Sanji. Then he pulls his fingers out and before he can feel the emptiness of it, Zoro has his tongue on him again deep and wet, the dirtiest kiss he’s ever gotten. Sanji is just too incoherent when Zoro pulls away and turns him on his back to say anything about it.

He has a second to see himself in the mirror of the ceiling - peach-red blush from the root of his hair to his heaving chest, eyes dazzled, hair damp sticking in every direction. Want and need painted clear on his face, surrendered to Zoro and his hunger. Pathetic. - Before Zoro’s face is in front of him kissing him wild enough to make him forget himself.

“Like this,” he says and his gaze looks just as desperate as Sanji feels “and you look at me, just me” it's been a long while since it's just been him, Sanji won't say. He nods instead.

This is it; this is it! This is it, _this is it_ , what he has been waiting, what he has been longing, and though he'd never had. Zoro heavy on top of him, hot between his shaky legs. Zoro kisses him again, once to his lips once to his temple where he stays.

“You tell me” he breathes to him, something like worry tinging his words “you tell me if you don't like it. You tell me to stop” Sanji can't answer something caustic, can't yell because the dull head of Zoro’s cock is right against him, right where he wants him.

Sanji throws his hands over Zoro’s back then, trying to brace himself for what is to come.

Zoro pushes in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos make me happy and as always thanks for reading


	5. Chapter 5

Sanji knows sex. Sanji knows it's not an earth-shattering experience, that it's not something transcendental that changes the foundations of someone's identity. This is not going to be the last time he gets fucked in the ass.

It is the first time though, and it is by Zoro.

Zoro, who lines himself and pushes slowly and steady, like he cares, like he doesn’t want to hurt him, like he is waiting for Sanji, and he can almost imagine that Zoro loves him. Zoro growls low on his chest, and Sanji feels it rather than hears it – only because their chests are flush together – it feels like the ripple of the ocean when a sea king swims past besides and Sanji breathes through his mouth that has come open, drowning in sensation.

Zoro is big, so big, he has never had something so big inside him – well… yesterday blowjob is not the same – it forces him open and it burns like a good stretch and he may be some sort of masochist, because he loves it, it makes him feel full in a way he has never quite managed to achieve and Zoro, just like in battle, is in tune with him. He shifts his hips slowly, pushing in without ever pulling, grinding against him, skin against skin, to distract him and help his body relax. It takes some controlled breathing and scratching at Zoro for Sanji to finally get used to the intrusion because his body doesn’t know what to do with it, torn between jumping boat and getting away from it and the simmering bubbling promise of fun times clawing its nail up his loins with every minute movement from Zoro. The kisses the swordsman peppers across his neck, collarbones and shoulders help too, gentle drags of teeth and lips.

He can tell when Zoro decides its ok to go ahead, Sanji doesn’t care much if he is ready or not already, because being underneath Zoro is the only thing that matters now and he has let himself go, yielding himself to Zoro because he said he’d be nice, because he is so nice right now. He comes back enough to himself to palms over Zoro’s back, to feel him move above him and follow the lines and ripple of his muscles, the wave of them underneath his fingers before the air is being punched out of him in a sharp gasp. It feels odd, it feels like a freefall. It feels like the place he wants to be forever.

The next time the air is being punched out of him Sanji’s body react, and he is broken between wanting to go lax under Zoro, open up and let him take whatever he wants, all he want, let himself be slashed open so Zoro can reach through his chest and take his heart, it’s his anyway and wanting to give as good as he takes, to flip them over and fit himself on Zoro’s cock, fight Zoro’s hands to the pillows, and keep them there, and take him apart, bite him, render him powerless, love him so good Zoro’s body will only remember him. Zoro adjust his angle and the decision is made for him because the only thing he can do after moaning is brace his legs around Zoro and scratching down his back.

He bites and licks and sucks Zoro’s neck trying to leave a mark this time. It makes Zoro moan loudly and his hips stutter. Zoro thrust with purpose this time, making sounds deep on his chest and Sanji has to drown a whimper and a moan, because Zoro doesn't take long to pick up the pace, to pick up a rhythm, moving his hips like the waves on a sunny day, caring and concerned and for the love of fuck Sanji wants him to raise up a storm. He tightens his legs to bring Zoro closer and Zoro straights up growls, trusting harder and Sanji is breathing with every thrust, in and out, until he realizes he is move himself in synchrony with Zoro because even if he wants it, he can’t stay still and let himself be dotted on like a maiden. So, he lifts his hips and rakes his nails down the marimo’s back, the way he knows now that drives him mad.

Zoro fucks him like a rutting animal, like a hungry beast, like a lonely man, his mouth never stopping in one place, hot and ravenous tasting and biting and kissing, not gentle anymore and Sanji wants the marks for ever, his hands going form softly pushing the hair away from his face to groping him hard, desperate and indecisive until they settle high on his thighs, where he scratch down and up again to stop finally to grip his hips and _oh yes,_ Sanji has dreamt of fingertip-like bruises on his hips, of those strong hands gripping him tight and pulling him so Zoro can slam on him taking him hard and fast and oh, _oh,_ he is so close.

They crash hard against each other like a shipwreck and Sanji would know and its scary, he feels directionless and ungrounded only present where Zoro’s cock and teeth are parting his flesh.

There is a worried grimace in Zoro’s face before he finds a way to snake one of his hand between their bodies to wrap it around Sanji before he comes, and Sanji tenses in the most delicious way when Zoro grins at him and thumbs over his slit before kissing him, he moans unrestrained because he can’t focus on keeping quiet anymore. The growl at his ear where Zoro is doing some complicated thing that makes Sanji’s hand shake where he is holding the marimo close. Zoro’s grip on his cock tightens and he moves his fist faster and Sanji is thrusting into his hand and he is coming, the knot on his loins snaping, breaching the surface of the water and breathing again the salty smell of sexsweat like the first time he went back up for air after diving.

He only realises he is laughing when Zoro flops on top of him and scrambles to his elbows trying to slide to the side at the same time of trying to kiss him on the temple and Sanji is laughing again because Zoro missed and kissed him on one eye so he tries again and again until he is laying kisses all over Sanji’s face, laughing himself infected by Sanji’s joy.

Who would have tough? Sanji thinks angling his face, seeking Zoro’s mouth. Who would have thought that Zoro would be so keen on kisses, that he would be so keen on cuddles? It makes sense, if he thinks of how much he let the rest of the boys jump over him and roughhouse him like a bunch of wild cubs to a lazy lion. Sanji is not sure how he fits in that dynamic but Zoro’s nose rubbing against his face is distraction enough to not think about it too hard.

________________

Zoro grabs the damp towel he used to dry himself from the ground and uses it to clean Sanji’s come out from himself, then drops it unceremoniously on top of Sanji’s face so he does the same while he gets rid of the ugly rubber around his dick, he waits until Sanji is done to tangles their legs together staring at the mirror-ceiling with a smirk, Sanji only knows because he can’t look at it, he really cant. There are better things to look at anyway, he figures focused only on Zoro, close as they are. _I love you_ he wants to say, to whisper it into the back of his ear, to the crow’s feet that show how much he laughs (more than what one would assume). He didn’t have them when they met years ago, nor the scar over his eye or those that litter his chest. _I’m yours_ he wants to confess to the three earing and the ugly vein that is just now coming down. Sanji thinks he has never seen the swordsman this happy and he would give the marrow of his bones to keep him like that. There is an easy smile on his lips and Sanji wants to kiss them raw, and kiss them better, whispering silly sweet things to them, promises of endless love and unquantified pleasures, of blind devotion and ardent adoration. _I adore you_ he wants to offer to Zoro’s chapped lips and to his neck, to his Adam’s apple – he wants to take a bite of it – to his chest. _Fuck,_ Zoro’s chest, a gift from the gods and always on display and Sanji wants to do things to it, naughty things, filthy things, things that Zoro would slap him up the head if he knew.

Zoro distract him of his thoughts when he takes his right hand between both of his. He lifts it until its high in front of his eye and then proceeds with careful movements to trace the lines of it. It’s a hand, it’s just a hand, it’s the most valuable thing in Sanji’s life besides his nakama but it’s just his hand and Zoro is using his left to hold it like it is a new-born thing and the fingers of his right hand wander it, the long skinny fingers and the shape of his knuckles, the delicate bones on the back and the perfectly trimmed nails. He follows with his forefinger the blue veins that make themself know in his pale skin and he turns it around softly to follow them up to his palm, to trace the cuts and lines of it. It’s surreal, how caring Zoro holds his hand between his, he could crush it, the strength of his grip deny blood to his fingers, crumple his palm and bones like a discarded pack of cigarettes if he so wished but instead he holds it, interlocks their fingers together and brings it back down to kiss the most protruding knuckle and there are the butterflies again, playing with fireworks in his stomach, shooting directly to his bruised heart now lodged in his throat. He feels so vain.

“You like my hands” he croaks, voice broken, bleeding love.

“Mmh,” Zoro mutters, eye closed, thrusting “best thing you got. Your treasure” Sanji wants to jump him, sit over him and eat him whole, kiss him until the world ends, take him in his mouth and turn him into a stupid mess, fuck him, break him, destroy him so no one after him ever has him, ever tastes him, ever hears him moan or laugh. He doesn’t because Zoro opens his eye, pinning him in place with a heavy, hungry stare “I think you should fuck me.” Zoro says then, a smirk stretching over his face “Y’know, keep things even.”

Sanji is up in seconds.

He tries to say something, moving his mouth soundlessly, _are you sure?! Yes, fuck yes! Is this something you really want I’m gonna fuck you so good you won’t walk right in days._ Zoro seems to pick up one of his trains of thought because he is moving to the centre of the bed, kicking Sanji in the process just to be annoying and opening his legs for him. _Ah_ one of the fun ones.

“Come on, have a feast” he dares him, chucking him the oil jar, and one rubber package, and yeah fuck it, he wasn’t really expecting this, even if he does wants it, so he is not wasting the opportunity. Besides, Sanji knows he is a good fuck and it’s time _someone_ in the crew believe him so he unrolls the rubber on himself and leaves the oil where he can find it again because, of course he is going to use it but only when Zoro begs for his fingers.

He dives down to kiss Zoro, stopping just close to it, fitting himself between his legs and holds the swordsman hands between his own, dragging them up over his head, fingers interlocked. Zoro lets himself be manhandled, an amused smile playing over his lips, he could throw him over, lift him with one finger but is letting Sanji tease, opening his mouth when Sanji drags the tip of his tongue over the edge of his lips. Zoro is not hard yet but he is getting there and that’s actually good for Sanji, he won’t let this finish too soon, it’s his very first time he is taking the initiative and he is going to make a goddamned good memory out of it.

He lets go of Zoro’s hands to drag his own down his forearms, following the path of his veins until the inside of his elbows, and Zoro allows him, lazy and happy. Sanji kisses him then, shallow and distracting while he lets one of his hands go down an upper arm, over tight ropes of muscle and across his shoulder, down until his hand cups Zoro’s pec, where he gropes a cheeky feel, Zoro groans for him, for his lips and his hand and Sanji glides his tongue over his lower lip and swipes his thumb over his nipple.

“Perv”

“Can you blame me, Mr. tits out?” he answers pinching the nipple between his fingers and sliding his other hand down Zoro’s upper arm, Zoro chuckles and he can feel the vibration of it when he stars leaving kisses and little bites down his strong jaw and neck, Zoro’s chest broaden underneath his palm with every hard breathing, controlled but not calm, next to his lips Zoro’s pulse quickens. Sanji allows his kisses to stops by Zoro’s collarbone, trying to suck something that will stay there the next morning and Zoro grits his teeth and moans low and pleased by the small degree of pain, masochist bastard that he is. He pulls away to see his work, the bite mark looks angry and almost purple, and it will be gone by the time they are beck on the ship but he still licks it and kisses better once before continuing downwards to bite at Zoro’s chest, trying to discover how sensitive his nipples are and kiss the scar again, and Zoro shivers and starts to pant under him. One day, Sanji thinks, one day he’ll take time to kiss every nick and scar on Zoro’s chest, right now that strip of flesh always covered by the haramaki is calling him.

He kisses from the navel down to where Zoro hair is thick and unruly and then up in a diagonal that follows the articulation, then higher, to that muscle that is half the V that drives Sanji a little insane because Zoro hides it under his ever present haramaki, and higher, to the already fading marks his own legs left. He is mirroring these actions on the other side of Zoro’s body when he takes the vial and oils his fingers, Zoro gasps then, holding onto his hair and shoulder and when Sanji looks up he looks on the edge between letting Sanji play and yelling at him to get on with it already so Sanji takes hold of his cock and jerk it a couple of times, it makes Zoro throws his head back and moan unrestrained and Sanji had though he’d have more control of himself but he clearly doesn’t so he sticks his oiled fingers inside Zoro, making a quick work of preparing him, and Zoro encourages him with gasps and moans, beyond verbal when Sanji finds the place he’s been searching for and sucks the tip of his dick. By the time Sanji has three fingers on Zoro his own head is spinning with want. He lets Zoro pulls him by the hair until they are eating each other’s faces like air is something irrelevant.

“How do you want me” Zoro pants like it’s the most natural thing to ask, like the phrase hasn’t been plaguing Sanji’s good nights for the last few years and Sanji has so many answers to that question - turn around, sit on me, lift your hips, bend over, on your knees, against a wall -.

He doesn’t answer, instead, he runs his hands through Zoro’s body with a greed he can’t recognize on himself, lifting Zoro’s knees so his feet are resting flat on the bed. He bucks his hips unconsciously when Zoro runs his nails down his ribs and Sanji bites him in retaliation, he then takes himself on hand and guides his cock in, it’s the same position in which Zoro fucked him, minus the pillows, it’s also the best position to see Zoro’s face when he makes him come.

This. This is Sanji’s favourite part, followed closely by seeing his partner lost in ecstasy, but this, the moment the bodies merge, when he finds himself buried in wet heat, when his lovers realize how good Sanji will make them feel, when they realize Sanji will only enjoy it if they do, this is what Sanji lives for. And when he pushes inside steadily and slow enough for it to be a tease Zoro frowns and tilts his head up opening his mouth with a gasp. 

“This feels-ah! pretty vanilla of you, love-cook” Zoro teases him with Sanji’s cock nicely nested inside him, and he looks like he is beaming, with a shit eating grin and wrinkles around his eyes and Sanji loves the motherfucker, his cockiness and his smile.

“You wouldn't know, marimo-kun,” Sanji shoots back nosing around his earrings “vanilla is the base of every dessert you do. Vanilla and sugar,” he says diving for a sweet kiss “before you add the _spices”_ he bucks against Zoro who gasps a laugh. Sanji kiss him them, dirty and deep and starts moving. Zoro groans pleased with every breath, letting himself be taken, letting Sanji have his fun.

“Harder.” he asks and Sanji can deny him, not when he frowns like that, not when every gasp sound like a laugh. Zoro’s legs are heavy and firm around him and Sanji hikes one higher, over the bend of his elbow “Harder.” he demands again and Sanji has half a mind to think that the bed will break, that he may hurt him “Show me what them legs do” oh, that’s a challenge.

Sanji snaps his hips and Zoro swears and holds on to his arm, palms over his face to drag him down for a kiss, bites his lip and tries to move with him. New as this is, they move trying to find that synchronization that ties them, the unspoken dance Sanji sometimes think they perform, heels and sharp edges, scalpel precision to never touch, unlike now, mess of legs and arms and breaths. Zoro feeling real, so real under him and keeping up with his every move.

He dares a look at Zoro’s face, wrecked and beet red flushed and Sanji becomes overcome with emotion, enough to stop, he wants to say it, needs to say it, he is dying with those three words stuck in his throat, and Sanji is calling him on his head, screaming his name inside it and the words don’t come. They don’t come! There is something high and painful crawling out of his throat and before it spills like blood on Zoro, he opens his eye, steely gaze fixed on him and he may be doing some kind of grimace because Zoro cups his face with his rough hand and lifts himself for a soft kiss

“We are ok” he whispers to his mouth with the ghost of his lips still touching his skin and Sanji aches so much he needs to move. He snaps his hips too hard and Zoro laughs and calls him a bastard and when Zoro asks “harder” of him Sanji whines high on his throat burying his face on Zoro’s neck, where his earrings jingle with every push and pull and Zoro doesn’t asks it anymore, instead he puts his trembling hands on Sanji’s shoulder and nape and Sanji can feel him holding himself back, forcing his hands open so the strength of them does not break his neck and Sanji kisses him, he kisses him and kisses him and feels like dying again until he is tumbling into an orgasm that knocks the air out of him he has enough bearings to take Zoro’s cock in his hand and jerk him before he goes too soft inside him and he gets to feel him squeeze him through his own after shake, he gets to hear the “ah ah ah” that Zoro makes, louder than before, and oh how he loves that sound now.

He pulls out and tries flop to the side not to fall lifeless on top of Zoro, he may not be as beefy but he’s certainly not light. The marimo however holds him by the waist and turn them both on the sides and kisses him. A slow tired drag of tongues and lips with no other purpose than to feel him close and Sanji could melt like butter on a pan

“You look happy now. I like that” Zoro whispers nosing along his nose, close enough to steal another kiss whenever he fancies.

“Just now?” he asks, he’s gotten greedy, he wants to hear of more times when Zoro likes how he looks, he wants Zoro to tell him he likes him, it’s so hard to strip a compliment from him, he’ll take advantage of this pillow talk to hear it.

“Yeah… you looked frustrated, y’know? For a while now, you know, I thought I was being crazy, thinking you were looking at me, but you _were_ looking,” he says smiling his shit-eating grin, Sanji loves the bastard “and you kissed me first. This morning, though, when you thought I wasn’t paying attention you looked sad. Like there is something you don’t want me to know, something you want to fix it without my help” and it’s too much- Sanji feel the sudden terror creep down his skull, cold and slow down his neck, down his spine burning the inside of his elbows, the tip of his fingers like dry ice. He ties to school his face to not reveal the panic he is feeling, he is a good liar, he can act his way out of this situation, sooner or later Zoro will realize he is damaged material and leave him but he doesn’t need to know now. “That” Zoro points to his face and Sanji can’t breathe, the air trapped on his throat, his lungs forgetting how to move “right there, you are scared, you don't really get scared what is it? What are you holding back?”

A thousand things crowd round his head, crashing against each other like waves in a storm, every single little thing he has done wrong, every jive and scoff he has uttered against Zoro, every word and ugly stare coming from faces that look like his but are not his mirror, every kick in the head, every displeased client, every lonely girl waving goodbye in port, everything he had not had time to do, every person he hasn’t been able to protect, every lie. He looks at his hands, useless, useless things that let the world slip between their fingers. He looks at the hands holding his hands now, broad, dark, rugged, hands that can destroy the world but are holding his with care. He looks at the arms connected to those hands, to Zoro, looking at him and Sanji can’t tell Sanji _can’t_ tell. Has he made his mind? Will he wait for him for ever like the life altering promises he keeps making? Doesn’t he understand the kind of leftovers Sanji is? Does he realize he is wasting his time with broken goods?

“I am too much” he whispers before noticing.

“Huh?”

“I'm too much, use too much space, too loud, too quiet, too weak, I keep secrets I not worth it I'm too much”

“What are you on about?” Zoro asks and Sanji wont loot at him, if he doesn’t look at him the worry he hears in his voice can’t be a lie, if he doesn’t look at Zoro he can ignore his burning worried gaze, the concern in his voice.

“I AM TOO MUCH.” he shouts shoving Zoro away. It burns, the places where his hands were touching, it burns, the bites on his neck, the kisses down his chest, the spit still between his legs “I want to touch you! All. The time! I want to yell that I lov- that I like you! In front of everyone but I won't cuz you'll hate it. I have been making booze in the pantry, because I want to feed you and I can't. I can't make you nice desserts and frilly cool drinks but I can learn to make beer and hard mead and you will drink it, but you won't tell me it's nice, you won't tell me you like it, you won’t tell me you like me and I need it! I need that validation! ‘cuz yeah I’m scared! That you are gonna get tired of me, that you fucking realize that I'm not fucking worth it, that I’m a fuck up, that I’ll do something stupid and break us apart”

“You are a fucking idiot” Zoro says in a soft voice and Sanji wants to run, he wants to run. go back to the sea, let the ocean take the tears he knows are coming.

“What the shit marimo I’m pouring my fucking heart…”

“I love you!” Sanji sobs, his hands over his ears, his nails digging his skin, if he doesn’t hear it is not a lie, if he doesn’t hear it Zoro is free.

“No, you don't” he says shaking any attempt from Zoro to touch him.

“What?!”

“No, you don't. you can't. I- it's me, I’m not”

“Ok let’s fucking calm down before we start throwing punches” he holds Sanji by the shoulders and roughhouses him into submission, sitting on his legs so Sanji doesn’t kick him away and takes his hands between his. “Do you think you are unlovable?” Sanji chokes on the sobs he is not willing to let out, he doesn’t have to say it, he already knows it “Bullshit. I love you. More important, the crew loves you, if this is because your fucked-up family, fuck them, you have already made yourself a new one, shit you got two now, you got a heartless pirate to become your dad. An entire ship of cooks to treat you like their fucking baby. You have like thirty-five uncles. If you think that when you joined the crew, we were just gonna be acquaintances then you are so fucking wrong!” Zoro says, dragging him into a hug to stop him from trembling. It burns, but he can hear Zoro’s heartbeat and the rhythm of his breathing and Sanji closes his eyes and tries to breathe, tries to match his pants to Zoro’s timing, inhaling the air that comes out of his lungs until his breathing is back to normal and Zoro’s touch doesn’t scalds anymore.

They stay like that, bare skin against bare skin until Zoro deems Sanji is ok, the he lets his head fall on Sanji’s shoulder.

“Hey, I'm gonna go clean up,” Zoro mutters against his skin “this shit’s gotten all cold and gross, you’ll be alright, yes?”

“Yeah” Sanji nods, and he knows he sounds unconvincing, Zoro plants a kiss on his temple holding his face delicately with his strong hand and somehow Sanji feels worse.

The moment Zoro closes the door to the bathroom Sanji is on his feet putting his clothes back on and out the door, shoes in hand and running. Out, out, out and away before he knows it, before he realizes what he has done he is locking the doors to the galley. Sanji looks around his kitchen, lost, this place is his it should comfort him it's where he moves the best but he feels out of place. He lets his shoes drop and the loud thud of them on the empty galley shakes him enough to move, he can cook for the crew when they come back, he could cook, only the food he bought today is still in that room with Z- he could cook from the pantry but there is beer and mead fermenting there. He can't go out he needs the containment and familiarity of the galley walls, the gentle sway of the ocean beneath his feet. He finds the rum and pours himself a glass and grabs his ashtray for the cigarette he doesn’t remember having lit and lets himself fall on the couch next to the portholes and he takes with uneasy fingers another cigarette from the packet and takes it to his lips, focused on the ritual of lighting it and filling his lungs with the smoke, maybe that way his mind won’t pull him again to what he has just done. Maybe that way he won’t think of Zoro coming out of the tiny bathroom to an empty room, maybe that way he can forget the way he run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i told ya there was gonna be angst
> 
> comments and kudos make me happy and as always thanks for reading~~


	6. Chapter 6

Zoro arrives at the sunny some hours later on his own, all the bags and packages Sanji has bought that morning with him, he lets them fall with a deafening crash in front of the galley door and goes inside to fetch a bottle of anything to take up to the crow’s nest. There is an air of him that keeps the crew away, he looks murderous and there is a forced gentleness when Chopper bounces against him, his blue nose buried in a new medicine book, Sanji can see from the porthole Choppers back hair raising on edge, his tail up like he is about to run when Zoro hands him with premeditated movements his fallen book before taking the stairs and disappearing for the rest of the evening. He doesn’t climb down for dinner and Sanji leaves a plate for him on the galley when he goes down to the male quarters at the end of the day.

When he wakes up the next morning the plate is intact and so is Zoro’s hammock.

It makes Sanji angry, he busts his back to feed them and fit their insane nutritional needs into a very eclectic menu, to make it tasty and healthy and the bastard hadn’t even deigned to come down during the night to feed himself. An offhand comment to chopper solves the immediate problem of the potentially starving marimo but only in the way that getting him feed, Chopper had not succeeded on making Zoro climb down from the crow’s nest.

“It’s best if he stays there,” says the little doctor when Franky asks during (second) breakfast “he is very angry and won’t tell why, he says he doesn’t wants to take it out on anyone, but I think he is hurt so I’ll try to check on him later if he lets me up there. Once, I crossed paths with a snow lion on Drum Island, it was starving and had a busted eye. I barely got away cuz I changed point and locked myself on a cabin. Seen Zoro up there felt scary like that” Sanji hears him and has trouble swallowing his own spit “but Zoro’s not gonna eat me nor he is gonna die of hunger so I guess we should leave him alone for a while!”

Zoro doesn’t go down for lunch either and it makes Sanji restless and boil with rage, he hasn’t gone down all morning, barricading himself over in the crow’s nest in what's now going on 15 hours, Sanji knows the minutes too, but can’t bear to recognize that information. Sanji also swears that if he is pissing out the window because he is refusing to go down, he’ll just throw the whole marimo away, what is that man doing?! He is tempted to climb up and confront him. Why? Why isn’t he demanding an apology from Sanji? Why is he not questioning him for his erratic behaviour? Why didn’t Zoro just burst through the galley door yesterday and broke his jaw with a punch? Why isn’t he taking it on him? If it had been Sanji the one left behind he is sure as hell would have kicked him to the other side of the Red Line. It makes Sanji angry, that he is not being confronted about his shitty actions, that he is not being called out. It makes him angry at Zoro because if he is angry at the marimo it means he doesn’t have to be angry at himself

________________

The third day after their date Zoro decides to go down. Sanji doesn’t sees him but he knows he has because when he goes back to the galley to start lunch Zoro’s breakfast plate is empty and clean, up until now Chopper had been the one to climb up to deliver each meal and come down with the empty dishes for Sanji to wash. Sanji is still angry, because it’s the safest thing for him to be, he has no right, he knows, but it only helps to fuel his rage.

Zoro has lunch with the crew, and Sanji looks at him and his frown at his tense hands and arms, at how much he is holding himself from bending the metal chopsticks and spoon, at how he avoids looking directly at Sanji, avoids talking to him, avoids the questions and the jabs the crew makes with scalpel precision and Sanji realizes he only engages in arguments with him because he likes it. Zoro can scare everyone in the crew with a glare except for the girls and Luffy, and Sanji can see him trying to hold them back. He looks clean and that’s always good for someone that has holed himself up for three days in what basically is a gym, he looks like he hasn’t sleep enough, though, and he eats just enough to not worry him, letting Luffy take meat away from his plate and swapping his brown butter-sauteed carrots for Nami’s creamy spinach. Somehow it feels like a slight to him, to his food, to the way he cares about people. He can’t think about it for too long, wont it make him think about the poor way he is taking care of Zoro.

Zoro has diner with the crew, he’d tried to nap during the afternoon and also disappeared in the workshop with Usopp and Franky and Sanji couldn’t steal glance of him anymore but at least he knows he is talking to the crew. Sanji wants to see him, though, his legs itching for a fight, his hands aching to take his face and beg. His body torn between his wants and impulses. He should apologize, he needs to, he should apologize because Zoro deserves it, because he can’t start this thing with his insecurities chewing him from the inside, but there is a lump on his throat he tries to scratch away every time he looks at Zoro, every time he thinks of their date. It doesn’t help, that from time to time Zoro looks at him, steely gaze, from underneath of the mikan tree where his skin looks stripped by light and shadow. A starving tiger set on a prey.

The next morning, he doesn’t go to the galley for breakfast and Sanji sees him eating bread and cheese and following Nami around, he has no idea where he got that food from and it pisses him off that Zoro hadn’t gone to him for breakfast, but at least the bread is from one of Sanji’s bakes and it lightens the blow a little.

________________

It's that time of the day when Luffy is not hungry enough to ask for lunch but he still should be starting it anyway when Zoro enters the galley. He is giving the back to the door, leaning towards the sink, reciting all the spices he has on the pantry (231 if he also counts his herbs) and the steps of onigiri on his mind once and again to try to calm himself down. He is going to try something new wrapped in the movements of something old, he will make Zoro’s favourite meal and ask him to stay after lunch, this is the old, he has been apologizing to Zoro this way since the very beginning, no words needed, Zoro always understanding his intentions, an old dance with familiar movements. This time, however, he is going to try to talk it out. If needed he is willing to lock himself in a room with Zoro. Words, he needs to use words, actions are not enough, more so his own, confusing and contradicting, but words are clear, they should be, as long as he keeps his temper at bay, as long as he humbles himself and recognizes his own guilt, he can do it, he can.

He is gonna be sick.

He doesn't hear him until Zoro calls his name. It makes him jump out of his skin, the deep vibrato of his voice a too different intonation from the way he last called his name and he can’t turn around, his legs won't hear him, his hands grabbing hard at the pot full of rice and water he has in the sink. There is again that lump on his throat when he tries to speak. _We need to talk_ , he doesn’t say. _I am an idiot_ ; he tries to force out _. I can't promise I won’t do it again but I love you and I didn’t know I would react like that_ ; he remembers trying to memorize. All he can do is grind his teeth and watch the water run through the rice grains.

“You gonna tell me why you run?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about” he lies and contemplates the idea of hanging himself with his own tie. He can feel Zoro’s murderous aura flash and recede again, he is making an effort, he is angry, he still wants to talk things out, he is hurt but he is giving him a chance. And Sanji just denies him and plays dumb.

“Right. Then I'll follow your lead and forget about this whole deal then.”

“NO” he cries, the word rising from his stomach wrapped in nausea. He can't let him go, Zoro loves him, Zoro doesn’t lie, Zoro loves him and he shouldn't, Zoro should look for someone better, but Sanji won’t let him go, too selfish to release him, to coward to tell the truth. To _do_ something about it.

“Then answer me. What. Should I. Do?” it sounds like an ultimatum; it sounds like a threat. It sounds like Zoro is already fed up with him and he should. He should! But Sanji has had a taste of him and can’t let go.

_Forgive me, take me back, I'm sorry I’m sorry. I got scared you deserve better than rotten leftovers but you still want me and I don't understand and it scares me. You love so wholly, you dedicate yourself so fully, when you look at me like I’m the only thing that matters I got so scared. I can’t let you bind yourself to me but I love you I love you I love you._

“Why are you leaving this to me?” he gags instead closing his eyes and focusing on the grounding feeling of the grains between his fingers, the cold water around his hands.

“cuz I want to know you want this! I wanna see you smile at me. As hot as it is, I'm tired of being at the receiving end of you scowl, it makes me feel like shit, like you would rather not have me on the crew”

“That's not fucking true”

“Then cut the crap. I know it's fun to banter and spar and make it seem like a fight but I said I love you and you barely look at me now if it's not to bark at me. I'm not gonna push you into anything, but if what you don’t wanna do is us, then I can't be hanging on you. It's not right of you to ask me that.”

Zoro stands there, like waiting for him to answer and Sanji can feel his stare unblinking and predatory on his back and he bites his lip until it bleeds and forces his eyes to stop leaking and tries not to shake by bussing himself with rinsing again the rice for lunch until the water runs away with little bits of broken rice, all its starch has been washed away and the rice had absorbed too much water from the rinsing. He can hear Zoro breathe in, like he is gathering patience and sigh and then the dooming sound of his heavy boots make while he exits the galley.

Sanji stays where he is, his back to the door and his hands in the overly rinsed rice, he wipes one of his wet hands over his face, across his too hot eyes. He needs a smoke and rethink lunch he thinks as he starts the rice pot. He can’t make onigiri with a rice like this.

________________

Zoro is not laughing. Sanji can see him, Sanji can feel the white emptiness of his laugh, loud and booming and absent. In his night shifts Sanji hears him, half sleep looking to the endless sea only to realize it’s the waves crashing against the ship, it’s not him, not Zoro’s crashing laughter that warms him up inside like a healing broth. He has caught him, once or twice, chuckle low and frown suddenly. Zoro would look around, half smiles still blooming on his face trying to find him, but Sanji can't laugh with him, it sticks to his throat and clogs his mouth like soft ball point toffee and he tries to swallow down to spit it out and all he manages is a grimace, a frown because if he laughs he is sure he'll cry. And Zoro would see him, his smile dying on his lips, his eye trying to read him, still looking for him to laugh with. Still trying to see him happy. To share his joy.

It backfires just as Sanji knows it would. Zoro laughs less and less every day and strides around the ship with restless energy, because they are not fighting, and any fight with Luffy is not the same, and they are not arguing and Zoro’s too sharp words and mockery is not something the rest handles well, vicious and terrifying in that way that makes Sanji boil alive in excitement.

There is a brief encounter with a marine ship. Zoro takes care of it. Slashing his way through the ranks even before Luffy gets there, sinking the vessel like it’s a personal affront. Jimbe stops anyone from joining him.

“A wrath like that is not something you want to be close to” he says his hand on Chopper's shoulder as the crew watches and waits and Sanji can't look away, can't take his eyes off the bloodshed or close his ears to the screams of terror of those who know their fate.

Soon, too soon, Zoro makes his way back to the sunny, blood soaked like a war god, a trail of gore left behind him and it makes Sanji sick on his stomach. it's a common thing now, Sanji wanting to give up his insides when Zoro looks like that, Thriller Bark the newest additions to his nightmares. Zoro soaked in blood for the sake of his captain's life. What would Zoro offer for the life of his love? Sanji doesn't want to think of it.

________________

Nami doesn't talk to him either. She would thank him when he brings her food or drinks but would look at him straight faced and unamused, waiting for Sanji to stop dancing around her. She arrives to the kitchen late and goes away quick and circles Zoro more often than usual. Sanji’s seen them shout at each other, angry and public pieces of an ongoing argument, only to quiet quickly down when he comes near them. He’s seen her hug him, in lonely corners of the ship, when they think no one is watching, and he lets her, face turned away and jaw set, a dark scowl shadowing Zoro’s face and Sanji can’t see if its anger or something else - it doesn’t feel like anger - he doesn’t hugs back, but sometimes he lets his head fall on her freckled shoulder. It’s an odd sight, her pale arms around Zoro broad back, petting his hair like he is a cat and Sanji boils with jealousy. _Stop touching him he doesn’t want her_ that’s not her place that’s not who should be touching him.

He cannot stop himself from trying to be nice to her but resentment has already buried itself in his heart – another bruise – and damnit if he doesn’t want to pull her away from him, climb on Zoro’s lap and claim him like his own. He has no right. He cannot yell at the skies that he loves Zoro. He cannot grab Zoro by the waist and dance with him through the deck or serenade him with his worst voice the shitty love songs he leant in the last port.

_Back off he's mine,_ he thinks virulently, grinding his teeth and chewing his cigarette into mush _you can’t make him moan like I did, you can’t make him laugh like I do you can’t fight at his side, you can’t pick up the pieces of him after a defeat, you can't love him like I do_ he thinks, looking at them and tearing open another cigarette carton, disappointed at himself.

________________

There is a fight, some inane thing that ends with Nami yelling at Zoro and Zoro yelling back at her and Sanji butting in without thinking, yelling louder, and angry at all three of them because he is angry at Nami and at himself but can only take it out on Zoro. It soon escalates to something physical, to the familiarity of kicks and slashes, even sooner they are left alone on deck and Sanji can live with this, with the short touches of his legs to Zoro’s skin, to the feeling of the swordsman breath on his face when they clash too hard, short lived taps and beats that shock Sanji to the bone and make him feel again, washing away the anxiety and trepidation.

For a moment, the split of a second, Sanji feels like they are back to normal, back to before, and that’s enough for Sanji, enough for him to forget about himself and have fun. After such a long while, getting lost in the rhythm and in the physicality of it all, his muscles finally tensing in a familiar way, his teasing coming naturally, he feels himself smile around his cigarette because maybe this is a clean start, they can build it all up from cero again. It makes him euphoric, feeling like he is nineteen again and the world doesn't know who he is but the ocean is broad and ready for him to explore and he has friends his age for the first time in forever and it only lasts a second because Zoro is refusing to talk back, avoiding his kicks letting his swords drop to the floor and cornering swordlessly against a wall and this close Sanji can't kick without making it an ugly thing that would turn Zoro's ribs into mash if it were to connect.

“Stop it! For fucks sake stop this bullshit!” Zoro demands and then kisses him and this is wrong this is not how it should go. He tries to push him away to break the kiss but Zoro holds him by the neck to keep him in place, there is no strength on his grip only direction and they should not be kissing, Sanji hasn’t even apologized, Sanji deserves his ass kicked not a kiss.

“No, this is wrong.” he begs when they break for air. Zoro presses him against the wall, his warm hand still on his neck but his head now in Sanji’s shoulder, and he feels like shaking in his own skin, like falling apart like a sand castle

“I wanted too much,” Zoro questions himself, small and pitiful but grinding loudly his teeth and he is so close to his neck, just a small movement and he could rip his throat out and Sanji would let him. ‘Too much’ Sanji thinks to himself, it’s not that he had wanted too much, it's just there is nothing for Sanji to give, nothing he can offer but a willing body and a warm meal and he can’t give that to Zoro, it’s too little, his life is too much bark and not enough bite while Zoro has only once boasted of what he can do and failed. His only first attempt. Zoro hunger is immense and Sanji is not that good of a cook to satisfy him.

_No_ , he is about to say, _it’s me who is wrong I_ am _wrong, born wrong_ he is opening his mouth to say when suddenly Zoro’s hand is no longer in his nape, banging hard once against the wall and his steely eye is looking at him, not giving Sanji a way out, nowhere to hide form what he has to say.

“Here’s the thing, cook. I love you.” he says and envy remarks that it comes like breathing to him “I want you to be happy... and you are not right now and if is this,” Zoro uses his other hand, the one that pushed him against the wall and was just resting on his waist to touch Sanji’s chest and then his own, Sanji feels the touch of Zoro’s fingertips sink into his flesh and burry themselves in his ribcage “won't make you happy then I'll retreat. But I think you are bullshitting yourself into thinking that we won’t work. And that's something I can't help you with and I won't deal with. Not if you keep running away. So, make your fucking mind Sanji because I think we will be terrifying together but it won’t happen if you don't give us a chance.”

There is a moment there, where Sanji can hear the beat of two hearts and Zoro eye keeps him pinned where he is, a moment where Zoro may kiss him again, where the air can be cut with a blade and they both know about them. A moment for Sanji to _do_ something, before Zoro steps back, pick his swords from the floor and climbs up to the crow’s nest.

And Sanji stays there, alone on deck, hearing the thud of his own bruised heart de-harmonize with the sound of the waves. Wishing for Zoro to have ripped his throat out.

________________

Zoro comes back down for lunch. its good, Sanji think, it’s great. Excellent! He says to himself, viciously stirring a pot of choux pastry for mid-afternoon snacks but for the next days Zoro is cold. Colder than before, there are no longing glances to run away from anymore, no tense silences to avoid. Zoro is ignoring him. He doesn't even leave the room when he enters like he used to do when they fought more seriously before this whole thing and the days add up and Zoro still doesn't warm up to him. It has Sanji going through cigarette cartons faster than ever before, it has him nervously eating at every hour of the day – once he realizes he changes his anxiety snacks for celery, satisfyingly crunchy, good for hydration and does not messes too much with extra nutrients -. He has lit his legs on fire twice already by bouncing them too much. Sanji's days at sea now pass with him cooking and eating and smoking so he doesn’t eat and eating so he doesn't run out of cigarettes. and Zoro… Zoro it’s back to normal.

Except for the fact that he is sad, and everyone can see it, except for the fact that they don’t fight. Except for the fact that now he goes down to the aquarium bar to look for booze instead of bothering him every evening. But Zoro talks to him! To pass messages from the other nakama, to yell at him to go low when a cannonball is passing right where his head used to be, to tell him is his turn on watch duty and Sanji feels like plucking every hair from his body with tweezers.

________________

Sanji is coming back from taking lunch below deck to Franky, Usopp and Jimbe who have decided to work while they eat, something about fix or upgrade the Shark Submerge III and they need Jimbe down there to help with the pressure of low ocean and speed and things Sanji has no intention of understanding. Today is coq au vin, the purple chicken freaking the fuck out of Usopp until Sanji told him it’s just chicken in whine marinate.

He stops before the door when he hears Zoro talking, he hasn’t heard him in days, nothing important for him to tell Sanji, nothing worthy to bother himself with Sanji’s presence, and from where he is he can see the hunched ark of his proud shoulders and the indifferent way he is eating, like he is not hungry but it’d be more trouble not eating (which it would. It would be a problem, a big one. Sanji has been slaving himself trying to cook things that may drag a reaction of the swordsman because lunch and dinner are the only moments when Sanji can be close to him nowadays). He stays where he is, out of sight of most of the eaters, listening to the rest of the crew, trying to hear any indication of Zoro’s thoughts.

Someone, Nami probably, had managed to unearth one of his mead barrels from the pantry and they are drinking it while Zoro mumbles about not taking the cook stuffs, he accepts a glass of it anyway. It’s not ready, Sanji frets, it’s not ready, that one is the barrel that it's not going into a second fermentation, he is ageing it, the afternotes are not there yet and it’s too dry for the taste of most of the crew, only Zoro can enjoy something as dry as what’s on the barrel, only Zoro can drink what's in that barrel, that Zoro’s barrel, and Zoro is drinking it, serving himself a second glass from the jug they keep refiling for him. 

He becomes aware of Luffy, looking at him meaningfully for a second but choosing to grab the drumstick of one of the chickens and shove it down his mouth rather than ratting him out, Luffy, who doesn't even chew, the motherfucker, tips his head to the side and wonders aloud “Sanji has been making lotza things with booze on it lately, he says he’s ‘experimenting’ but there are things Jimbe told me we didn't buy that Sanji did himself. shishishi can you believe it? We have a cook that makes his own booze and uses it on his meals for us!” he mentions casually to the table but there is an intention hidden in there, Sanji can’t place it but he can see it, he is sure everyone can see it if they pay enough attention to the way Luffy is not stuffing his face silly with food. “What do you think, Zoro?” he asks, his face turned to Zoro but his eyes pining Sanji to where he is standing just outside the galley door.

“ts good”

“‘Good?’” Luffy asks, voice and eyes low and Sanji can see him shove a piece of carrot around his plate with his fork, indifferent to the food. Something inside Sanji’s head starts to scream danger in big red letters.

“course its good! It’s the cook’s” Zoro growls but shoves lifelessly another spoonful of coq au vin into his mouth and washes it down with mead before Nami places a hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to defend him” she tells him and Sanji’s heart sink to the bottom of the ocean.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about”

“Don’t I?!”

“You don’t know shit Nami!” This would be the moment Sanji would jump from his hiding spot to yell on her defence, but he is just so irrationally angry at her.

“Why won’t you tell us then? '' Brook says and Sanji’s chest twist with the knowledge that this, whatever it is, has been noticed by the rest of the crew.

Zoro stands then, Sanji can feel his anger even from outside the room, something wild, cornered and animal coming from him.

“I can’t! I just- I can’t! it’s not mine to say.” He yells and there is a knife stabbing the table now. Zoro never loses control of himself, Zoro never stabs anything without knowing exactly what he is doing. He breathes then, his back rising and falling with every breathe “Don’t insert yourselves into this. You’ll only make it worse” he voices, plucking the knife from the table as easy as Sanji plucked the feathers from today's lunch.

Sanji runs away then to the crow’s nest, where Robin is making Chopper company who is in watch duty since Usopp had sightings of marines the day before. They look at him taken aback, analysing his every move, looking for signs of sickness, trying to piece the puzzle he is but Sanji couldn't care less because the room smells like sweat and steel.

________________

After witnessing that, Sanji doesn't sleep for days. His own skin itching with guilt and want and regret, afraid of leaving his kitchen at night and bumping into Zoro in the moonlight, with his skin smelling of sweat salt and steel. He pulls the curtains and locks the doors and at four A.M. when Zoro goes down to sleep he can breathe again. And so, he cooks. He plays with his still, grabbing a bottle of wine and to gets a quarter bottle of a spirit. What’s undrinkable he mixes with the cleaning supplies or he drops it to the ocean, he doesn’t want anyone to end up blind.

He kneads dough for pastries and folds and folds and folds his jittery energy away into phyllo and puff pastry for croissants and arabastan sweets, and creams milk to churn into butter and sauces and desserts that he puts away before he himself eats them. He picks up ripe mikans in the dark and busies himself in the task of peeling and de-pithing and slicing the peels and the segments to make mikan liquor and mikan marmalade and candied peels and because he can’t stop himself and because he is cursed to try to please, he pours half a bottle of whiskey to the marmalade pot and simmers it through the night. In the morning he makes breakfast and dashes to the bathroom before Zoro shows. He knows if he serves him, he’ll do something stupid, his food already speaks too loud for him. As soon as he knows Zoro is no longer in his galley he dashes in and starts lunch, something quick and fulfilling that can be left boiling away or locked in the oven while he slips away to the quarters and curls on himself to toss and turn the day away, guilty and uneasy until it’s time to wake up at evening to start it all over again. He is a coward he knows it. Zoro should know that by now too.

More than once he wakes up wrapped in a blanket he hadn't thrown over himself. In those occasions he curls himself further in and tries not to cry his anger away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kuddos make me happy and as always thank you for reading!!


	7. Chapter 7

Zoro’s misery is deep, cold and silent. It spreads through the ship like cold air biting ankles and bones. Zoro doesn’t laugh. Zoro doesn’t talk, he doesn’t sleep. He eats only what he needs to not upset Sanji and trains just what he should but there is no passion behind it, only routine, only discipline. He’ll let Chopper lay on top of him and nap. He’ll help Usopp bend steel bars, he’ll let Luffy steal the meat of his plate and Nami charge him for even breathing, stern faced and tired. Zoro doesn’t boast, he doesn’t insult him anymore he doesn’t yell at him, he has completely stopped trying to engage with him and Sanji has barely talked to anyone in days. They are not speaking to each other, and Sanji is not speaking to anyone. Sanji misses him. His shit eating grin, his voice, the way he moves when he fight. The weight of his swords against his sole and his hands on his legs and the heat of his mouth on his neck. Sanji misses him and hates himself.

It gets to the point where in the scarce battles they have been facing Luffy doesn't even fight, letting Zoro handle the confrontation. Sanji fights too, it helps him release tension, but when they enter battle Zoro walk right in the opposite direction of him (Sanji misses the times when they would stay close on those low danger confrontations, when sometimes they’d fight back to back, when they could show off and play around because there was no real danger), he usually has everything solved within minutes, the flash of metal swirling possessed away from him. Zoro would then go back to the ship, clean himself up and instal himself somewhere to meditate and Sanji would help loot the enemy ship because its best if he keeps himself busy. It gets to the point where Nami doesn’t yell at him, and Chopper keeps trying to test him for sickness and Franky invites him to his workshop down in the belly of the ship so people stop being all over him. And Sanji can’t watch or hear him from his kitchen.

It gets to the point where whenever someone wants to talk with Sanji he leaves the room, changes the subject, shoves his head in the pantry and messes around with his produce and preserves. To the point where Sanji can’t listen Brook sing his love songs. to the point where the only one Sanji sees is Robin in the mornings who observes him with her smile that becomes more of a mask as the days passes.

________________________

Luffy comes to him one day. Sanji is out on deck because its sunny and he thinks he is forgetting how the sea looks like by the light of day. He sits by his side on the starboard rail and looks up to the sky. Sanji lights another cigarette, the third of the last two hours, he is running them off so fast, so fast. Luffy looks at the ocean, to the same place as he does, he looks older sometimes, like he knows things he shouldn't but that don’t bother him and that Sanji should learn on his own. He is not the same kid that crashed into his room and broke the Baratie almost to pieces. This is the man that Sanji has chosen to follow. The man that Zoro would die for.

“What have you done to him?” Luffy asks and Sanji feels his chests cave in on itself. He can’t look at his captain, he can’t. He knows Luffy is not mad, he knows Luffy is playing his last card, Luffy doesn’t intervenes, he lets people solve things on their own, he lets his crew fight their battles on their own but when there is too much blood on the floor and too many tears to dry he steps in, a helping hand, a stern word, a call to reason, reality, to his principles, a hat to hide the tears. Sanji knows he can’t deny it if Luffy ask him if he is responsible for Zoro’s misery. The guilt is eating him alive but Zoro deserves better.

“I’m not enough” he breathes with the smoke of his cigarette. He hopes Luffy understands and drops it there. 

“That’s bullshit” Sanji should have known by now that Luffy would answer like that, but he still feels like the runt of the litter sometimes, like a little eggplant, like he is still dying of hunger.

“I’m- he doesn’t need to deal with me”

“We've seen the worst of you already, Sanji, I think he knows what he’s getting into”

“It’s a lot”

“He can bear it”

“He doesn’t _have_ to!”

“He likes challenges”

“I don’t want to _be_ that”

“Let him take care of you, it’s the one other thing he knows how to do” Sanji wants to fight him for the white hotness he feels rolling down his face, for the first wringing his heart and shoving it up his throat. How dare he? Zoro is so much more than that. Zoro is loyal and dedicated and true, what's wrong about putting his friends over his dream? He is passioned and honest to bluntness. Soft under all that bravatto. He is going to become the best swordsman in the goddamned fucking world, and he is going to protect the crew even if it costs him his dream and he doesn’t needs to care but he does anyway. Worst of all he still cares about Sanji. Still looks at Sanji, trying to understand trying to catch his eyes, confused and sad and all Sanji can do is stay there; fisting his hands and grounding his teeth because Luffy understand but at the same time he doesn’t and he can’t tell him.

He jumps ship then, Luffy doesn’t try to stop him. He lands foot first in the water. So cold it gnaws at his bones, the sea welcoming him, drinking him up, drowning the world behind it with its eternal promise of a blue embrace and if his face feels hot, the sea can fix it, and if he screams and scratches his throat raw the ocean will drown his noise. And he sinks, until it’s hard to see the light between the waves and the fish are not shy of him and this is the sight of when he dreams of jumping for fish from that rock.

When the cold becomes unbearable and his lungs burn from need and the blue is more teeth than arms, he kicks up and resurfaces off the water, swimming about a couple of strokes before placing the Sunny and kicking hard the water until he is walking on air, it takes him only a couple of minutes before he is stepping into deck, the crew throwing a fuss over his jump. Luffy is not on sight, neither is Zoro. 

He waves them off, trying to lit a soaked cigarette before heading to the boy’s quarters to change into dry clothes and goes early to bed. Dinner is ready and he can’t trust himself around food won't he eat it all, and he is sure the crew can feed themselves fine for one night. 

________________________

He has a nightmare. It may be the deep bone cold of the ocean it may have been the deep cold nested on his chest.

He is eight again and his mother’s kisses each of them, one by one, temple by temple. It weights like and iron mask and burns like an iron brand but she is dead now. So far inland the smell of the sea can’t reach, so far inland the sky gets cut by hills, no longer endless blue. There are people crying, there are people writing things in long parchments, counting them One Two Three Four and Reiyu, One Two Three Four and Reiyu, One Two Four and Reiyu. He is supposed to be dressed up, lined up but it’s not Sora in the coffin, it’s Zoro slashed in half covered in blood. It’s Zoro, in a stretcher unconscious and dying bit by bit, - _nothing. nothing happened -_ not even Wadö at his side. It’s Zeff, young and strong, leg missing and infected. Dead. It's himself. small and hungry and scared. It’s himself in a wedding suit and his brothers are pushing knifes down on him, pinning him to the velvet like an insect and Judge is closing the cell, closing the lid casting him into a cold darkness where the sound of the ocean can’t be heard.

Someone shakes him awake, strong hands holding his arms tighty, sitting him up on the couch he fell asleep in and Sanji cannot really see in the darkness of the quarters but dizzy and scared as he is, he knows is Zoro shaking him.

“Oi, hey! You ok? Your breathing was all off and you are shaking” he asks him, wiping the tears of his cheeks with his broad hands without acknowledging them. Fuck him. Fuck him and his consideration, fuck him and the way he is holding him tight, and holding himself back, worried and concerned. Zoro is holding him at half-arm length, not wanting to barch in his space, not wanting to overwhelm him and all Sanji wants is for him to hug him, so he does it instead. Sanji claws his way into the space between Zoro’s arms, holding onto his back nails and fists, breathing in the salt-steel smell of Zoro. What time is it? What time did he fell asleep? His nightmares don’t come early but Zoro is still awake. His skin is damp with sweat he must have been training just before going to bed, just before finding him crying like the fucking useless child he still is. 

Zoro doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t say anything. Sanji feels him put his arms around him and settle on the couch, waiting for Sanji’s breathing to calm again, for Sanji to stop shaking; and he does, in the warm enclosure of Zoro’s arms. 

When Sanji wakes up that morning he is still on the couch, his face feels clean and he is covered with a blanket that smells of sweat and steel. Under his head, Zoro’s haramaki.

________________________

He doesn’t want to get up. He doesn’t want to walk up to the kitchen and cook (that’s a first), he has baked bread and there is boozy marmalade and cured meats in the cupboard, there is milk in jars and cheese, and butter in the fridge and Nami-san has the key. He wants to stay in the banket cocoon that smells like Zoro and fall sleep again pretending the swordsman is sleeping beside him. But Robin-chan will get up soon for her morning coffee, and if he doesn’t want to make her suspicious, he should be there to serve her breakfast.

With a groan he finally gets his shit together and gets up, looking around the room to see if someone is sleeping in his hammock and make sure that everyone is either sleeping or properly covered - even if its Franky, especially if its Franky who has insisted on sleeping in the nude since the beginning and Sanji may like men but nobody what’s to see that – that’s a lie. Robin-chan wants to see that but Sanji will never understand why – half sleep, he fits Luffy’s upper body on his hammock again and covers Usopp’s stinky feet with his banket. Before he realises, his legs take him in front of Zoro’s hammock and the marimo is nowhere to be seen, he groans again, he shouldn’t be there, longing in front of the bed of a man that already loves him, supposedly, yet, there he is, with said man’s haramaki under his arm and his head on his covers. They are cold but smell so much like him and Sanji wants to scream but the crew is sleeping and he has to make breakfast and a haramaki to return.

________________________

The kettle is boiling and it’s been boiling for a while now. Sanji should turn it off before making tea for breakfast, wont it burn, at least to take a tray for Brook, who is on guard duty up on the crow nest. 

But Zoro is there.

They seem to be having fun, taken in the fact that Brook is singing something that sounds like a dirty little new song and Zoro looks relaxed from where Sanji can see him leaning against one of the windows.

He should turn the kettle off, maybe even start grinding coffee for Robin but he has the haramaki on his working table, old and green and made of thick wool and it feels like its staring right fucking back at him and Sanji wants to lay his head on the scratchy thing again. He does because is that or start to bang his head against the fridge. He is not angry anymore, just tired and sad and has no right to be, and Zoro is sad and it’s his fault but he doesn’t know what to do about it, he tried apologising already but couldn’t even look at the swordsman at the face.

He sighs on the green wool and it’s kinda gross he thinks, maybe he can get away with never returning it and keeping it to himself as a memento of the fact that Zoro loves him and he is too coward to act on it. 

He is wallowing in these thoughts when he feels someone tapping him on the shoulder. He jumps, caught off guard and realizes that the kettle is off and an arm is waving at him from his left. Sanji looks up and as he expected, Robin is sitting at the table, looking at him with a calm smile and worried eyes. 

“Good morning Sanji-san”

“Robin-chan! So early and so beautiful! You know the day can only get worse when the first person one talks to is the lovely you!” He answers on instinct and Robin bows her head as someone who is expecting such reaction “Ah, shit! Your coffee, I haven’t started it yet just give me a minute, it'll be the best coffee you've ever had” he rambles and drones his usual morning routine but Sanji knows he is not feeling it, the past days at least seen Robin in the morning has been helping him with his goddawful mood - she exudes an air of calm and contention, surely from all the years she spent convincing people to trust her - but today, after the nightmare and Zoro being there and then not he feels on edge, out of depth. And tired. He is not about to snap at her but had her been Nami he is sure he would be regretting his word right that moment. He hurries with the grinding and the pouring however he is not willing to compromise on the quality of his cooking, even if it’s just a coffee, and serves her it’s first cup. She can wait for her meal, she always does anyway. 

He needs something to do with his hands, something to distract him from the piece of green cloth in his work table so he digs into his fridge and the milk is close to date so he brings flour and eggs to start a batter. Crepes for Robin and then pancakes for the rest, as the batter can always become thicker and he whisks, to drown his thoughts and to keep Robin quiet. She has a look in her face that makes him uncomfortable today, a look that says he won’t get away without talking.

Much too soon he is placing crepe suzettes in front of Robin and putting apart pancakes for the rest of the crew’s breakfast.

“I have noticed,” Robin says halfway her tiny cup of espresso “this crew individuals have the unwise tendency of taking overwhelming responsibility on their own,” she stops there, just for a moment, long enough to meet his eyes, and maybe Sanji is too tired to run away or maybe he is just frozen in fear but he returns her gaze “I mean pain, Sanji. we don't know how to share pain; we don't know the moment when is best to let the other pick us up and carry us back home. Some of us outright reject help when offered.” Sanji tightens his jaw and wishes for a cigarette but it’s too early, too early to start smoking “It comes in different ways, help. Sometimes is a left hook on the face, sometimes is a hat so no one can see us cry. Sometimes it’s time to think. Maybe you have thought enough” 

Sanji then smiles at her, the well recorded set of expressions to offer a pretty lady acting on its own and he turns around to refocus on his task, on flipping the pancakes and the whiskey marmalade he is serving them with and maybe the savoury something he should be preparing too, mumbling a bullshit answer to try to distract her from pining him to the floor with needles and a comforting smile. She interrupts him before he can say anything resembling sensibility.

“We can see it, you know?” Robin says less cryptic than usual “The way you ache. The way you both do.” Sanji stops with his hands on the ladle full of batter, has he been so obvious? Of course he has, Nami doesn’t talk to him, Zoro doesn’t fight, Jimbe’s huge presence sitting silent wherever he is like he is making sure Sanji doesn’t hurt himself, Luffy outright having a chat with him about the issue...“up until now I considered it was better if we didn’t interfere, but you have isolated yourself, and you _are_ hurting him. And you are hurting yourself.” 

“I don’t know what you are talking about, my darling Robin” he lies, quickly because it hurts.

“He cares a lot.”

“who?” it hurts, it hurts. Right where he remembers Zoro touching and the vice grip his own throat has imposed on himself.

“He is committed.”

“Robin-chan please top,” he begs, batter forgotten and nails raking down his neck.

“He won’t do anything to push you and make you uncomfortable”

“I KNOW I KNOW shit, sorry, Robin-chan.” He says closing his eyes hard to stop whatever Robin can see in them and he scratches at his throat again until it feels sticky. “It’s just… it here” he says sinking his nails on his throat, feeling the red hot lines his own nails have left behind “it’s all here and it won’t come out and a letter won’t cut it because I need to face him and when I speak I never say what I mean and he is- he is. He is everything, he is so much and I don’t deserve him. He is bigger than life and his hunger insatiable and I’m just… I’m just cold leftovers, 132 traumas in a suit tied up and kept together by smoke and kitchen twine and I’m needy and violent and I want to feed him the world. Nothing affects him, nothing swats him drags him down and how can I keep him for my own?” 

“Nothing?”

“Nothing!”

“Not even heartbreak?” Sanji looks outside, through the open door from which the clear melody of Brooks violin flows in, he has heard this one before, in the quiet night when the crew piles in the aquarium room, glad to be alive, glad to be together, talking low about their lives before, of the people left behind. Sanji had keep quiet for too long during those nights, nothing before Zeff, nothing about the iron mask and the golden cuffs, they all keep something quiet, they all know if they stay alive after another fight, they will confess of something more. And maybe one day Sanji will be able to talk about his mother and maybe one day Sanji will be able to ask about the girl from the sword and Robins smile and Luffy’s years alone, or Brooks pain but right now he still wants to run to a place where soft things don't mean he has to wait for the beat up he know is not coming but is expecting anyway.

“He kisses me the same place mum used to…” he confesses. Then Franky opens the infirmary door. Nami and Usopp had been playing with the cannons yesterday and Franky unconscious on deck had been the consequence. 

“Am I interrupting something? I can leave…” he says pointing at the door but he is in Sanji’s kitchen for breakfast and breakfast he is getting.

“Sit your damn ass and eat your fucking pancakes Franky” he says placing a stack in front of the seat next to Robin’s. Franky looks at them suspiciously but sits anyway and since there is no one to steal his food and he can eat like a proper person for once and Sanji thanks the seas for small mercies. 

The silence that falls is heavy on him then, while Franky eats his breakfast and Robin sips on her second coffee, Sanji nibbles on his own crepes, eating just to eat, eating because it eases his anxieties, because he can’t taste anything when all he can think of is Zoro and his haramaki and his voice soothing him at night.

“Am I being selfish?” he asks jittery, feeling himself up for his cigarette carton.

“I believe so, yes” Robin answers him plainly and he wants to weep but there is public now.

“I don’t wanna be selfish” 

“It was selfish of me to think the straw-hat pirates would be better if I just left, even if I was trying to be selfless. Self-sacrifice is not the answer in situations like this, Sanji-san, it's ok to be selfish from time to time. Take it from me. Be more selfish.” Robin tells him before stealing the last of Franky’s pancakes and leaving sauntering out the door. Franky watches her go and then looks at him, his hair today is a pompadour in the shape of a heart and Sanji hates it irrationally, then the cyborg stands up, drinking his lasts sips of his own coffee and tells him before leaving.

“Bro, he hasn’t killed you already, just fucking talk to him”

He is an idiot, he is a fucking idiot, a coward self-sabotaging, traumatized idiot. It doesn’t redeem him and he doesn’t deserve shit but fuck it. Franky is right, he is still alive, no missing limbs and if Zoro loves him, if Zoro will keep doing this to him, being so uncharacteristically attentive towards him by caring about him like a silent ghost, from the peripheries of his senses, but not pressuring him into shit when he is being a motherfucker and a shitty, shitty boyf- he cannot bring himself to say it, he hasn’t done anything worthy of the epithet but by his hands his is gonna claim it. He is sure it’s a fucking mistake from Zoro’s part but he seems to be unwisely into this for the long run and so is Sanji.

And Zoro should just cut the crap and start yelling at him again.

________________________

Lunch is over and Zoro hasn’t laughed in weeks, it has everyone on edge because what could possibly have made Zoro sad? He. He has, it’s Sanji’s fault and it has him boiling with anger again and guilt and smothered affection. Outside on deck, Usopp has a hand over the marimo’s shoulders, clearly trying to cheer him up and failing and Sanji can count the wrong things in that picture. That’s not how you cheer the mosshead up. you distract him with a fight, something to make his body hot ad working, to make him focus on the way he should be moving and breathing until it’s all he can focus on and then, when he is too tired to keep fighting, you hand him a drink.

Before he realizes he has a warm bottle of sake in hand and his legs itch for a fight, he is angry, he is so angry, how can Zoro be so stupid, how can he let himself be dragged down by one rejection, who even is Sanji to dare reject him, how can Zoro allow him to hurt him like this.

How he allowed himself to hurt Zoro like this.

(He is so sick of himself)

He kicks the galley door open and stalks towards the marimo and grabs him by the back of the yukata hard enough to make him stumble backwards, to make Usopp run away for dear life. Sanji takes the chance to whip him around and grab his stupid face with both hands and plant a kiss in his stupid mouth. It's not sweet, its angry and a challenge and when he bites Zoro’s lips the marimo growls loud and angry and fists the hair in the nape of his neck to deepen the kiss into something hungry and it's like their first kiss all over again, angry and confused and violent until it isn't. And Zoro places shallow and sweet kisses on his mouth like he is apologizing for something but he has done nothing wrong. 

“It's so scary to trust that someone will love me.” he says to Zoro ear, nosing at the earrings when they allow themself breath “So don't go and break my heart marimo, and if you tell anyone what I just said I will throw you overboard tied to the anchor, you hear me?” and Zoro laugh, loud and open still holding him and the rumble of his chest is like the sway of the ocean. he can hear Luffy start to holler at them and the crew joining the uproar and Zoro kisses his temple and laughs and the crew laugh with him and everything is fine, really, because Zoro looks for his eyes when he laughs and he can't think of a better conclusion for this whole mess that his bruised heart got him into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic was supposed to end here, but, at some point i decided i wanted them to have more sex, self indulgent, i know, but also, like, after reading some comments i realized there was some talking missing so if next week chapter is late, which i dont believe its gonna be, but still, if its late, its because im cracking my head trying to fit the sexy fluffy funny thing i orinally had planned for the last chapt (which is already written but im not happy with it) and the talking part i think its missing.
> 
> anyway; as always comments and kuddos make me happy and thank you for reading so far!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Praise Kink and Safe Word discussion.
> 
> i put this in here because i dont think its fair for people looking for praise kink to click on this and deal with all 7 chapter before reaching what they are actually looking for. the safe word thing is a one line throaway but i still think its important to stablish that they HAVE one.
> 
> ok, so this chapter happened because i wrote too many times about sanji wanting to ride zoro to not actually deliver on it. it was supposed to be something sexy and funny and fluffy and silly and then the praise kink happened and sanji is still kinda traumatised but this is still fluffy i hope. also, people in the comments made me realize that they still needed to talk a bit and i agreed with that so that happened too.
> 
> i dont bother you further with this, please enjoy!!

“Say it, c’mon, say it”

“I love your cock”

Zoro lets his head fall back and laugh, open, delighted. Bright. And Sanji moves his hips harder against him, letting himself fall faster, receiving him deeper, just to turn that laugh into a moan or a grunt or something just as arousing.

“That’s not what I mean” he says wrapping one hand around Sanji’s cock and placing the other on his waist, stopping him from moving and jerking him slowly. This is torture Sanji thinks, but the roughness of Zoro’s fingers and the look of him framed by his legs and glistering with sweat it’s just a step outside of heaven for Sanji, Zoro looks so good underneath him, like that’s the place where he belongs “Say it” Zoro orders again and Sanji chokes a moan when he thumbs around his head, he tries to move but the hand in his waist won’t let him lift himself - he could, if he really wanted he could, both his legs are stronger that just one of Zoro’s hands but Zoro has this shit eating grin on his face, too sharp fangs and too piercing eye and Sanji feels a little weak and a lot hot “Say it”

“Ah! -I love you” Zoro grin broadens and he bucks once against Sanji and he braces in the swordsman legs, spreading his own legs further open to feel him deeper. Hot, solid and Big inside him.

“Again”

“I love you” he moans and Zoro bucks once again and the hand on his dick does this thing that Sanji likes but squeezes him right after, making him pant desperate and needy.

“Again!”

“I love you!” Zoro’s hand leaves his cock to find its usual place on his hip and Zoro bucks up, pulling Sanji’s body close to him, again and again and Sanji wails shameless, it feels so good, the rhythm, the fingertip like bruises, the sounds and Zoro under him, not letting him go.

“Good boy” Zoro gasps, that something predatory of him showing its face and Sanji feels his entire body seize with pleasure, it’s just two words and the ropes on his lower belly tightens and his legs seize on themselves and Zoro groans low on his chest because Sanji just tightened around him. 

“Shut up”

“Don’t like it?” he teases and lets Sanji set the rhythm again moving his hands up and down his thighs just to feel his muscles act “What about gorgeous?”

“Nno”

“Strong”

“Stop” Sanji begs, he is not used to this, he is not used to the compliments, the adoration, the unwavering attention.

“Your voice drives me insane” Zoro adds, knowing exactly what he is doing when he bucks up, making Sanji whimper louder and needier.

“I’m gonna come” Sanji whines like the spoiled brat he knows he is becoming.

“You can’t, not until I say so” he says taking in hand Sanji’s cock again, thumbing his slit but tightening his grip to keep Sanji from coming. Sanji wants to trash about, find his way into the active role again, take Zoro’s hands and pin them over his head, even if he knows he can only do that if Zoro allows him and how exiting it’s when Zoro lets him, but he wants to trash and use his legs to subdue Zoro but Zoro rakes his nails from high up on his neck to down to his navel and Sanji’s belly tightens and trembles in delight and he lets his mouth hand open because what else can he do when Zoro has placed his one track mind into paying attention to him and his pleasure. 

“This wasn’t supposed to go like this” he pants, trying to gather himself back together and gain the upper hand again without much success.

“No? but you are doing so great, looking so pretty riding my cock like that” Sanji smacks him in the face and then squeezes one of his nipples in a reflex movement and Zoro hisses through a smile. Fucking masoquist.

“I was supposed to ride you- fuck! And get you to lose it, go a little ah! F-feral. God I love it when you look at me like you are hungry”

“I just do what gets the best reaction,” Zoro says eye clouded and smiling, a little feral, a lot proud - just the way Sanji wanted just the way Sanji likes- and with a smart twist of his wrist he has Sanji coming.

“Oh God, oh fuck, oh I fucking love you” he snarls. He has stopped trying to look pretty during sex, Zoro has made a game of trying to pull weird faces out of him while fucking and he always, _always_ losses when he bottoms. 

“Ah! that’s hot ah ah!” Zoro moans coming inside him and Sanji’s cooked noodle of a body can’t find the blood to flush.

________________

“Why do you keep asking me to say that?” Sanji asks, lifting his head from Zoro's very comfortable tit. It’s been about 2 months since Sanji managed to get his shit together and fix their budding relationship and Sanji still feels like running away and sabotaging everything sometimes, but they had a talk, Sanji had explained as best as he could why he had run and why it may happen again and they had decided on a contingency plan, because it’s not that Sanji doesn’t love Zoro at the end of it all, because he does, he loves him so overbearingly much he had wept pulling at his own hair and trembling, it is that Sanji can’t just receive love just for the sake of it, he hasn’t earned it, he hasn’t earned Zoro, and Zoro had grabbed him by the arms and shook him out of it. _You can’t tell me who to love,_ Zoro had said, _and if I think you are worthy of it then you are_ then he had held him until he had felt like the broken pieces of him fused back into a person again. That had been 6 weeks back in the galley. Right now, they were fucking in the crow’s nest because the thought of being seen by Franky or Brook, or waking up Chopper is nerve-racking. Franky has been, however, tracing blueprints to build two more rooms, one for each ship's couple (and a cupboard for Nami, Zoro had added earning him a kick to the head and a raise to his debt).

“Was talking with Robin the other day...”

“About _our_ sex life?!”

“Who do you take me for? ‘f course not. Just about you and the shitshow we both were at the beginning of it all and she came up with something called positive reinforcement or something. If I want you to feel comfortable with saying you love me then I should have you say it in a situation where you feel good and comfortable and sex it’s the only way I know I can make you feel good” Sanji considers for a moment telling him that’s not true there are plenty other ways Zoro makes him feel good - acknowledged, appreciated - but it would mean missing the perfect timing for a dirty joke and he is just that basic sometimes.

“I’ve been trying to drag a compliment out of you for _years_ and all I had to do was sit on your cock?” he says instead, snarky in a way Zoro should know he is joking

“Like that was gonna be easy too. Look at what it took to get us here.” Sanji feels the familiar pang of guilt rush through him and he lifts his head from where he is resting but before he can say anything Zoro interrupts him “If you apologize again, I swear I’ll throw you out the window.” 

“I can’t have nice things…” he says morosely dropping his head back on Zoro’s chest “That’s why I have you!”

“You are a right twat!” 

“Aww, I love you, too” it escapes from him and he closes his mouth so fast his teeth clack. It had been easy; it had been natural and true and thoughtless and before Sanji can panic further he feels Zoro’s heavy hand in the back of his head begin to scratch. It both keeps him in place so he doesn’t scape and saps away the anxiety.

“Get off of me” Sanji says, without any intention of going anywhere now. Zoro squeezes gently his nape and pulls him up to have him face to face. If Sanji really wanted he could be anywhere else, they both know that “I said get off of me!” Sanji repeats before letting Zoro kiss him. 

It’s a slow thing, something they are beginning to learn after all the denial and self-loading and hunger, things are still new and the urgency of touching is still always there, simmering under their skins, tainting with impatience and love their every interaction. But there are moments - in the middle of the night when Sanji has decided to stay awake until dawn and Zoro is finally getting sleepy, those moments when the urgency has melted away, when Sanji’s blood spilling love has calmed down to a dripping - those are the moments when Sanji allows tenderness to happen. It’s Zoro fingers, threading softly over his skin, and his breath ghosting close to his ears, it’s his smell of salt steel sweat and tobacco and the gasps Zoro makes when he answers in kind, it’s Zoro’s heart beating strong, and then stronger for him. And Zoro is always willing, Sanji has noticed, no matter the time of the day or the aggression of his desire, Zoro can reads him and Zoro seeks to spoil him.

“What do you want?” Zoro asks, because it’s Sanji’s choice - it always is and when Zoro reaches and Sanji says no Zoro lets go and when Sanji wants and Zoro can’t he asks for a minute and when both want and reach and pant Zoro always asks “What do you want?”

Sanji doesn’t answer, there is a hickey below Zoro ear, just beside his dangling golden earrings, he had made it three days ago and it hasn’t banished yet, only because he keeps worrying the patch of skin with his teeth every time he sees it, he also doesn’t answer because Zoro hand has already gone down to his cock and he may be good at multitasking but there is only so much he can do when it’s about Zoro’s skin and Zoro’s hand and Zoro’s mouth.

“You wanna top now?” he doesn’t, not really. He feels lax and pleasantly tired, still feels open and tender, the shape of Zoro still marking his flesh, he likes to think. And with little effort and a different position Zoro could just slide in. He feels lazy and content and if he can leave the heavy work to Zoro he will, because Zoro spoils him like that and Sanji loves it but won’t ever admit, not out of fear, it’s a thing of pride this time.

“Take care of me marimo” Sanji says letting himself fall on his back, dragging Zoro on top of him. Zoro kisses him, the slow purposeful drag of his tongue sinking Sanji further into mindless bliss and then Zoro sinks gently his teeth on his neck and his collarbones and lowers himself to bite at his nipples. It makes Sanji scrat at his neck and shoulders.

“Fuck! Scrat harder!” Zoro says with his mouth around his right nipple. It took weeks for Sanji to realize Zoro wasn’t pulling away from his skin whenever he talked. It actually took a mind-blowing blowjob and Zoro’s first attempt of dirty talk for Sanji to realize that he kept talking with his mouth busy. Sanji had a hard time looking at Zoro’s swords after that. They also had had an argument the next day about Zoro talking with his mouth fool of food, Sanji lost that one, too embarrassed to organize his arguments, and because Brook got a hold of the thread of their argument and started teasing him.

Zoro lets go of him to take a look at his face and Sanji can feel himself blush because Zoro tilts his head to the side to look at him curious and he looks kinda cute and how dare he being cute. And then, Zoro, the son of a bitch, beams at him. 

“You like being bottom” he says caressing the hair away from his face so he can look at both his eyes at the same time. It’s not something Sanji feels particularly comfortable with, but it's Zoro and he is baring himself one layer after another to him and if Zoro wants to look at both his eyes at the same time Sanji will allow him because it means Zoro will smile at him.

“The fuck you’re taking? You like it too!” it doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel embarrassed by it all.

“Yeah, but I’m a masoquist” he says shameless, his smile morphing into that too sharp and dangerous grin that he reserves only for him, and Sanji feels in his loins. Before he can argue anything Zoro leans down to kiss him again. The bastard learnt early on that kissing him is a sure way to distract him (to be fair, it works just as well the other way around and Sanji abuses it more often because it makes Zoro happy and look a little stupid and it makes him laugh and get away with bullshit).

Zoro leaves him a second to put on a new condom and lube himself and comes back quickly to him and Sanji allows himself to look and laze in the meantime. When Zoro is back he peppers his face with slow kisses before lifting one of Sanji’s legs and finding his way in. They move with the cadence of the sea, with the rhythm of the sound of the waves down below and Sanji is losing breath every time Zoro rakes his teeth over his neck, every time he moans next to his ear, letting himself be adored in a way that weeks ago would’ve had him shaking with panic.

Zoro pulls away from him to change his angle, he takes the time to drag his gaze over him, Sanji can feel it, scorching and approving and then Zoro's hand, up from his leg, full of bite marks and hikies, up, though his torso, in the dip of his navel and the higher pressing at his nipple, to finally settle craning his neck. And Zoro is still looking, and Sanji at least has never been ashamed of his body.

“What a sight you are” Zoro tells him and Sanji frowns because it makes his blood run with urgency through his veins. There is a shift in Zoro’s attitude then, Sanji can tell, he can tell when Zoro is going to say some bullshit to make him angry. “I wish we had that ceiling mirror so you could see yourself.”

It’s not what Sanji is expecting, but because his first reaction to any surprise is anger Sanji tries to kick him. Zoro wrestles him a little, laughing at him in that so very fond way he was when Sanji is doing something stupid and fucking bastard marimo bitch, he kisses him into submission.

Zoro has done this thing to him before, this praise thing and Sanji can’t stand it. It’s torture, it’s sexual torture and Sanji comes so fucking fast when Zoro talks to him like that. It makes him feel aroused and loved and ashamed and undeserving when Zoro tells him he is good, when Zoro tells him he is beautiful and passionate and all those things that make Sanji wonder if Zoro really is a masoquist or another weird kind of switch.

“Your word is pantry” Zoro tells him, grounding him again to the wool blanket beneath him and Zoro above and then Zoro pulls out, it’s a fast movement and Sanji finds himself suddenly laying on his belly. Just as fast Sanji feels Zoro grab his ass and push in hard and fast and _fuck!_ the angle is different and Zoro has always had perfect aim and it's perfect and horrible because his cock is trapped between the blanket they have laid on the floor and himself, and Zoro is now holding his hands above their heads. He can feel Zoro’s hot breath and sharp teeth on the back of his neck and the heat of his chest weighting him down. It’s not always but it's often enough that Sanji feel about to be devoured, caged by Zoro’s presence, between his claws and fangs and cock. Zoro pushes against him hard, again and again and Sanji whimpers because he can’t do much more than that, not when Zoro reads him like an open book and act fast to undo him. H _e is gonna eat me_ , Sanji thinks, Zoro is going to devour him starting from his heart and his throat until there is nothing but his hands left to remember him by. Sanji shivers and moans in delight, his orgasm tugging and coiling in his loins.

He is going to come, he is so ready for it, but Zoro takes both his hands between one of his with a delicate strength that has Sanji knowing he’ll never do any harm to his hands and uses his other to stop him from coming. 

“You don’t come until I say so” Zoro pants against the back of his ear, then he bites and pulls and stops moving. 

“Fuck! I love the way you feel, have I told you? When you’re all the way deep inside and it feels like you can fuck me through the floor. When I stick my fingers inside your mouth and you can’t stop moaning, you sound so good, you know? There is no one else I want to listen but you. And the way you let me fuck you? Like it’s the last time I’ll ever touch you, like you don’t want to let me go, like if you could you’d eat me. I’d be stupid to let you go, you are the best laid I’ve ever had, the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, the only one that can keep up with me. I’m only alive ‘cuz you were waiting for me, weren’t you? ‘Cuz you told me to stay alive and I’ll come back to you even if you don’t want me. I fucking love you, you know that? You know that? I’ll find your sea and if I can’t I’ll build it for you.” Sanji bites the arm that holds his hands and shakes, there are tears in his eyes and Zoro is making him come, trusting slowly and circling the crown of his cock and someone screams fuck while he is coming and then all is black. 

_______________

“I love you” Zoro says after making sure he is awake “I thought it was something I had to say only once but fuck it. You need to hear it and I don’t like the way you look when I say it so Immana say it as many times I need to make you stop looking so sad when you hear it”

Sanji doesn’t answer, perfectly safe and content where he is between Zoro’s arms. When they pull things like this, sex that pushes boundaries, Zoro doesn’t let him go, after care, he had said the book said, because apparently Zoro reads when no one is paying attention to him. Because it makes Sanji feel better when Zoro wants it so hard it hurts, because it helps him not to run away again.

Sanji doesn’t answers, there is no need to.

“I wonder” he mumbles when Zoro’s breath start to fall into the pattern of someone close to sleep, Zoro gasps in surprise and jumps a little, tightening his arms around Sanji and Sanji suppress a snort “had I told you before, that I am into you- that I- that I love you, it would have been easier, no?”

“Before?"

“Before my wedding” Sanji spats the word like is poison and Sanji will eat anything but he doesn’t want that word in his mouth.

“Oof no, I would have killed so many people…” Sanji smiles at that, he does not approve but the sentiment makes him happy.

“Not right before, shithead, before like in Dessrosa, or Sabaody…” he says and then distracting himself “you looked so good on Sabaody, and I got so worried because you were missing a goddammed eye, but your tits were out and I was bleeding _everywhere”_

“Since when you know?”

“I was sure of it on Thriller Bark" Zoro hums and tightens his hug on him, not a good memory for either of them.

“It took us too long” Zoro says with his mouth on the top of Sanji’s hair in a permanent kiss “I don’t know, would you had let me help in Whole Cake? Why do you ask?”

“Everything feels so bad since then, all the awful things from Germa came back and I just feel so worthless”

“Hey, no”

“And I was worried before but I still felt like I was in the top of the world, like I could face anything and either cook or kick my way out of troubles but now its all on the open and I still feel like a terrified child and now they can find me and I know I’m stronger than Judge but he still haunts my nightmares and makes me feel like I can’t fucking breath over that iron mask. Fuck!”

“And iron what?! I’m gonna kill him. I’ll kill them all.”

“Please leave my sister alone I’m trying to mend our relationship”

Zoro frowns, Sanji can feel it from his place over his chest and he shakes Zoro’s arms away from him to kiss him shortly and look at him square on the eye.

“I love you,” he says “one day I’ll be able to be annoying about it. And I should not ask more patience from you but wait a bit more. And you cannot leave me when I start dancing or singing badly around you.”

Zoro laughs then, that laugh that starts small and grows in waves until he is crackling and Sanji is laughing alongside him and this? This is worth it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kuddos makes me happy and as always thank you for reading and thank you for sticking this far!!

**Author's Note:**

> if you see something that needs to be tagged, please let me know id be really grateful 
> 
> kudos and comments make me happy and as always thank you for reading~~


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